JOHN  MAXS,ON  STILLMM 


THOMAS  P.    O'NEILL,  JR. 

LIBRARY 

BOSTON  COLLEGE 


Gift  of 
L.   Scott  Van  Doren 


6<i^.v, 


Sb 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Boston  Library  Consortium  IVIember  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/theophrastusbombOOstil 


THEOPHRASTUS  BOMBASTUS  VON  HOHENHEIM 


CALLED 


PARACELSUS 


HIS  PERSONALITY  AND  INFLUENCE  AS 
PHYSICIAN,  CHEMIST  AND  REFORMER 


BY 


JOHN  MAXSON  STILLMAN 

PROFESSOR  OF  CHEMISTRY  EMERITUgTsTANFORD  UNIVERSITY 


CHICAGO  LONDON 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  CO. 

1920 


copyright  by 

The  Open  Court  Publishing  Company 

1920 


'89 


PRINTED  IN  AMERICA 


J 


TO  THE  BUILDERS  OF  THE  SCIENCES  OF 
CHEMISTRY  AND  MEDICINE  WHOSE  LABORS 
HAVE  CONTRIBUTED  TO  THE  REALIZATION 
OF  THE  DREAM  OF  PARACELSUS  OF  A  SCI- 
ENCE FOUNDED  NOT  UPON  DOGMA  BUT 
UPON  OBSERVATION  AND  EXPERIMENT^ 
THIS   STUDY    IS   DEDICATED. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Preface v 

Introductory 1 

The  Early  Life  of  Paracelsus .  11 

The  Paracelsan  View  of  Nature 25 

Medical  Theory 44 

Defiance  to  Medical  Faculty  and  Profession 63 

As  a  Reformer  in  Medicine 80 

The  Chemist  and  Reformer  of  Chemistry 91 

Contributions  to  Medical  Science  and  Practice 115 

The  Mission  and  Ethics  of  the  Physician 132 

Paracelsus  as  a  Theological  Writer 142 

The  Later  Years  of  Strenuous  Labor 159 

The  Last  Days  of  Paracelsus  . 174 

Bibliography 181 


PREFACE. 

THE  following  attempt  at  a  characterization  of  Para- 
celsus and  of  his  place  in  the  history  of  science  owes 
its  inception  to  difficulties  met  in  connection  with  the  prepa- 
ration of  a  course  upon  the  early  history  of  chemistry. 
Important  discrepancies  as  to  facts  and  violently  differing 
judgments  as  to  his  influence  and  value,  especially  in  English 
sources,  seemed  to  make  desirable  a  new  attempt  at  inter- 
pretation. Material  for  this  exists  in  the  studies  published 
during  the  past  few  decades  by  a  number  of  scholars,  whose 
labors  have  resulted  in  seriously  modifying  century-old 
judgments  by  the  discovery  of  new  evidence  and  by  tracing 
down  and  correcting  earlier  errors. 

Especially  may  be  noted  among  the  more  recent  Para- 
celsus students,  Karl  Aberle,  John  Ferguson,  Karl  Sudhoff, 
Franz  Strunz,  Raymund  Netzhammer,  R.  J.  Hartmann,  H. 
Kopp,  Heinrich  Haser,  Max  Neuburger,  Julius  Pagel,  Fried- 
rich  Mook  and  Anna  M.  Stoddart,  though  many  others  have 
contributed. 

Studies  for  this  book  were  begun  more  than  a  decade 
ago,  and  the  manuscript  was  completed  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  Great  War.  Publication  was  then  postponed,  and 
has  been  further  delayed  by  the  illness  and  death  of  Dr. 
Paul  Carus,  editor  of  The  Open  Court  and  T/z<?  Monist,  to 
whose  interest  and  cordial  cooperation  in  the  planning  of 
the  publication  the  author  is  deeply  indebted. 

In  compiling  this  work  copious  literal  translations  of  the 


Vlll 


PARACELSUS, 


writings  of  Paracelsus  have  been  introduced,  in  the  beHef 
that  no  other  treatment  could  so  well  convey  some  impres- 
sion of  the  personality  of  the  Swiss  physician  and  the  char- 
acter of  his  appeal  to  his  contemporaries  and  followers.  The 
texts  used  for  that  purpose  are :  the  Strassburg  folio  edition 
of  1616  (the  third  impression  of  Huser's  original  edition  of 
1589-90)  ;  the  Chirurgische  Bucher  und  Schrifften,  Strass- 
burg,  1618 ;  and  extracts  from  Paracelsus  manuscripts  as 
contained  in  Dr.  Karl  Sudhoff's  monumental  bibliography 
Versuch  einer  Kritik  der  Echtheit  der  Paracelsischen  Schrif- 
ten,  2  vols.,  Berlin,  1894-99. 

The  author  takes  occasion  to  express  his  gratitude  to 
Professor  Karl  Rendtorff  of  Stanford  University  for  much 
valuable  assistance  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Early  Ger- 
man texts,  and  to  Professor  J.  S.  P.  Tatlock,  also  of  the 
Stanford  faculty,  for  his  helpful  and  clarifying  suggestions 
in  the  same  connection.  For  the  accuracy  of  the  translations, 
as  for  their  imperfections,  the  author  alone  is  responsible. 

J.  M.  S. 
Stanford  University,  March  15.  1920. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

THE  period  of  the  late  Renaissance  and  the 
Protestant  Reformation  is  from  many  points 
of  view  of  great  human  interest.  Many  influences 
were  active  in  bringing  about  a  readaptation  of  the 
spirit  of  man  to  changing  conditions,  a  readjust- 
ment all  the  more  violent  as  the  bonds  of  tradition 
and  authority  had  so  long  held  the  minds  of  men 
in  the  fetters  of  accepted  dogmas.  In  art,  literature, 
philosophy,  politics,  theology,  many  strong  and  bold 
thinkers  arose.  Men  were  becoming  aroused  to  a 
new  consciousness  of  their  powers.  Reacting  from 
the  medieval  mental  slavery,  the  spirit  of  man  be- 
came more  independent  and  self-assertive. 

The  domain  of  thought  latest  to  share  in  this 
impetus  was  the  field  of  natural  science.  After  many 
hundreds  of  years  since  Greek  and  Roman  science 
and  art  had  been  overthrown  bv  barbarian  con- 
quests,  during  which  period  there  existed  compara- 
tive intellectual  sterility  and  all  learning  was  con- 
fined to  the  clerical  orders  and  all  independent 
thought  had  been  jealously  censored  by  the  medieval 
Church,  there  had  gradually  developed  both  within 
and  without  the  Church  a  restless  movement  toward 
question  and  criticism  of  accepted  dogmas  and  au- 


2  PARACELSUS. 

thorities.  There  arose  an  ambition  to  reinvestigate 
and  to  test  by  reason  the  basis  of  knowledge  and  of 
faith.  Naturally  the  beginnings  of  this  movement 
took  place  in  those  domains  of  thought  most  clearly 
related  to  the  scholarly  thought  of  the  time — in 
theology  and  in  speculative  philosophy.  So  long, 
however,  as  this  movement  was  limited  to  the  cler- 
ical classes,  and  its  expression  was  confined  to  the 
medium  of  manuscripts  in  scholastic  Latin,  no  great 
popular  participation  could  occur,  and  the  authority 
of  the  Church  could  in  great  measure  control  any 
infections  of  thought  considered  dangerously  in  con- 
flict with  accepted  beliefs. 

Nevertheless,  the  tendency  toward  independent 
thought  could  not  be  extinguished.  It  found  outlet 
at  first  in  other  directions,  in  the  revival  of  interest 
in  the  art  and  literature  of  the  ancients,  in  the  burst- 
ing forth  of  new  forms  of  art,  in  painting,  sculpture, 
architecture  and  literature. 

Two  great  influences  had  arisen  during  the  fif- 
teenth century  to  accelerate  the  intellectual  awaken- 
ing of  Europe,  a  remarkable  development  of  the 
universities,  both  in  number  and  scope  of  teaching, 
and  the  invention  of  printing  by  movable  metal 
types. 

Many  of  the  older  universities  had  been  founded 
in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  or  even 
earlier.  Among  the  more  prominent  of  these  were, 
in  Italy,  Naples,  Salerno,  Bologna,  Padua,  Pisa;  in 
Spain,  Valladolid,  Salamanca,  Seville;  in  France, 
Paris,  Montpellier,  Toulouse;  in  England,  Oxford 


INTRODUCTORY.  3 

and  Cambridge;  in  Bohemia,  Prague;  in  Poland, 
Cracow;  in  Austria,  Vienna;  in  Germany,  Heidel- 
berg, Cologne,  Erfurt. 

In  the  fifteenth  century  there  were  founded  a 
large  number  of  universities,  particularly  in  the  Ger- 
man Empire,  as  Wiirzburg  (1403),  Leipsic  (1409), 
Rostock  (1419),  Louvain  (1426),  Greifswald 
(1456),  Liineburg  (1471),  Munich  (1472),  Ingol- 
stadt  (1472),  Mainz  (1477),  Tiibingen  (i477)' 
Budapest  (1465),  Upsala  (1476),  Copenhagen 
(1478).  In  France  also  several  new  universities 
were  established,  as  Aix  in  Provence  (1409), 
Poitiers  (1431),  Caen  (1437),  Bordeaux  (1441) 
and  others.  In  the  earlier  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century  were  established,  e.g.,  Wittenberg  (1502), 
Breslau  (1505),  Frankfort-on-the-Oder  (1506), 
Marburg  (1527),  Konigsberg  (1544),  Jena  (1557). 

The  development  of  the  universities  and  the  ex- 
tension of  printing  both  served  to  bring  to  a  larger 
constituency  the  ideas  of  representative  thinkers  of 
the  time. 

Many  other  events  were  operative  in  breaking 
down  the  barriers  of  traditional  conservatism.  The 
discovery  of  America,  and  the  exploitation  of  its 
wealth  by  Cortez  and  Pizarro,  the  discovery  of  the 
ocean  route  to  India  (1498),  were  opening  new 
centers  and  currents  of  trade  and  commerce  and 
new  sources  of  wealth.  The  power  of  Spain  was 
growing,  the  great  German  Empire  losing  coher- 
ency. The  prestige  of  the  Pope  in  temporal  affairs 
was  disputed.    As  the  power  of  the  emperor  -waned, 


4  PARACELSUS. 

the  influence  of  the  German  princes  increased.  The 
German  cities  were  gaining,  the  feudal  barons  di- 
minishing, in  authority,  while  the  mercantile  and 
middle  classes  were  increasing  in  wealth  and  influ- 
ence. The  printing  and  circulation  of  the  Bible  also 
occasioned  more  wide-spread  criticism  of  current 
theological  thought,  and  was  largely  influential  in 
the  development  of  schisms,  which  eventually  re- 
sulted in  the  Protestant  Reformation. 

Theophrastus  von  Hohenheim,  or  Paracelsus^  as 
he  came  to  be  generally  called,  was  a  true  child  of 
this  period.  He  illustrates  at  once  its  independence, 
its  self-confidence,  its  boldness  of  thought  as  well  as 
its  confusion  of  old  and  new  tendencies,  its  depend- 
ence upon  tradition  and  its  struggle  to  free  itself 
from  that  bondage.  The  lifetime  of  Paracelsus 
(1493-1541)  fell  in  a  period  of  the  most  fertile  in- 
tellectual activity  of  the  Renaissance.  We  may 
realize  this  if  we  recall  that  the  span  of  his  life 
touched  the  lifetimes  of  Michelangelo,  Machiavelli, 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Ariosto,  Rafael,  Columbus, 
Copernicus,  Thomas  More,  Erasmus,  Luther,  Me- 
lanchthon,  Rabelais,  Vesalius,  Cardanus,  and  others 
whom  these  names  will  suggest,  and  who  have  left 
a  distinct  impress  upon  the  development  of  civiliza- 
tion. Paracelsus  was  born  in  the  year  following  the 
discovery  of  America,  an  event  which  with  its  con- 

1  The  name  Paracelsus  was  adopted  by  Hohenheim  in  accordance 
with  a  common  custom  of  writers  of  the  time  of  using  Latinized  or 
Hellenized  names.  Thus  Agricola  (from  Bauer),  Melanchthon  (from 
Schwarzerd),  CEcolampadius  (from  Hausschein), — all  German  con- 
temporaries of  Hohenheim. 


INTRODUCTORY.  5 

sequences  had  much  influence  toward  energizing-  the 
thoughts  and  stimulating  the  imagination  of  the 
generation  that  followed. 

Through  nearly  four  centuries  the  name  and 
fame  of  Paracelsus  have  come  down  to  us  with 
something  of  the  legendary  haze  that  characterizes 
the  age  of  fables.  It  is  quite  generally  recognized 
that  he  left  a  distinct  impress  upon  the  theory  and 
practice  of  medicine,  though  there  have  existed  great 
differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  extent  of  that  influ- 
ence and  whether,  on  the  whole,  it  was  beneficial  or 
detrimental  to  the  development  of  the  science.  It 
is  admitted  that  he  inaugurated  a  new  era  in  chem- 
ical activity  by  diverting  the  attention  of  chemists 
from  the  vain  aims  of  medieval  alchemy  to  the  appli  • 
cation  of  chemistry  to  use  in  medicine.  It  is  recog- 
nized that  he  introduced  some  rational  ideas  into  the 
practice  of  surgery.  Pare,  sometimes  called  the 
father  of  modern  surgery,  a  younger  contemporary 
of  Paracelsus,  is  said  to  have  acknowledged  his  in- 
debtedness to  the  earlier  writer.^  Erdmann  in  his 
History  of  Philosophy  credits  him  with  having  in- 
augurated the  era  of  the  modern  development  of  the 
philosophy  of  nature.  English  readers  know  that 
his  life  and  thought  inspired  the  Paracelsus  of  Robert 
Browning.  Books  have  been  written  to  show  that 
to  Paracelsus  we  must  look  for  the  beginnings  of 
homeopathy.  Goethe  scholars  have  attempted  to 
find  in  the  works  of  Paracelsus  much  of  the  inspira- 
tion and  material  of  Faust.     Modern  mystics  have 

2  Cf.  Stoddart,  The  Life  of  Paracelsus,  London,  1911,  p.  65. 


6  PARACELSUS. 

sought  in  him  a  fertile  source  of  the  revelation  of 
the  occult  in  nature,  while  students  are  not  wanting 
who  have  found  in  his  doctrines  the  earliest  recog- 
nition of  the  necessary  basis  of  modern  scientific 
method.  Writers,  moreover,  there  have  been  who 
have  disputed  all  these  claims. 

As  with  his  work,  so  with  his  character  and  per- 
sonality. By  many  of  his  disciples  and  critics  early 
or  modern  he  has  been  extolled  as  a  skilled  physi- 
cian, a  wise  teacher,  a  great  reformer,  a  sincere  and 
pious  and  unselfish  man.  By  many  of  his  profes- 
sional opponents  and  by  other  critics  he  has,  on  the 
other  hand,  been  characterized  as  an  ignorant  ego- 
tist, a  charlatan,  a  drunken  braggart,  a  superstitious 
visionary. 

Evidently  not  all  of  this  can  be  true.  Somewhere 
in  this  confusion  of  contradictory  estimates  must  lie 
the  true  Paracelsus,  for  he  was  no  mythical  per- 
sonage and  could  have  possessed  no  impossible  com- 
bination of  qualities. 

But  whence  come  these  antagonistic  estimates, 
and  why  have  opinions  varied  so  extremely  ?  What 
were  his  real  accomplishments — what  his  true  char- 
acter and  personality?  To  attempt  to  summarize 
the  answers  which,  in  the  past  few  decades,  modern 
historical  research  has  made  to  these  questions  is 
the  task  of  this  essay. 

There  is,  indeed,  no  great  difficulty  in  under- 
standing how  it  came  about  that  the  German-Swiss 
physician  became  thus  credited  with  contradictory 
attributes.  It  was  his  fortune  or  misfortune  to  have 


INTRODUCTORY.  / 

become  the  originator  of  a  school  of  medical  prac- 
titioners, which  came  into  influence  mainly  after  his 
death  and  which  for  more  than  a  century  w^aged  a 
bitter  warfare  with  the  older  or  Galenic  school.  Par- 
acelsists  and  anti-Paracelsists  supported  or  con- 
demned the  theory,  practice,  life  and  character  of 
the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  newer  school.  Fool- 
ish and  credulous  adherents  and  admirers  credited 
and  spread  tales  and  legends  of  his  wonderworking 
and  miraculous  powers.  Equally  foolish  but  hostile 
or  malicious  antagonists  invented  or  credited  other 
fables  to  the  detriment  of  the  character  and  life 
of  the  founder  of  the  despised  and  hated  schism. 
For  in  the  medical  profession  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  it  w^as  not  with  the  v/eapons 
of  modern  science — with  patient  and  critical  experi- 
mentation— that  differences  of  opinion  were  settled, 
but  they  were  settled  with  the  traditional  weapons 
borrowed  from  the  theologians  and  philosophers  of 
the  time  —  dialectics,  the  citation  of  authorities  — 
while  ridicule,  slander  and  abuse  were  effective  ar- 
guments in  the  hands  of  disputants. 

From  the  thus  accumulated  mass  of  fable  and 
exaggeration  it  is  not  easy  to  free  the  reputation  of 
Paracelsus,  to  discover  and  justly  estimate  his  real 
personality  and  influence. 

The  sources  of  reliable  information  are  of  two 
kinds:  such  unbiased  contemporary  records  of  the 
life  and  work  of  Paracelsus  as  exist — and  which 
are  none  too  numerous — and  the  internal  evidence 
of  his  own  published  writings.     While  his  writings 


8  PARACELSUS. 

as  collected  by  his  editors  are  of  great  volume,  their 
character  is  such  as  to  offer  much  difficulty  in  their 
interpretation.  Some  of  them  were  published  during 
his  life  and  under  his  supervision.  Some  of  them 
were  published  from  manuscripts  in  his  own  hand- 
writing or  by  his  amanuenses  or  secretaries,  some 
edited  from  the  lecture  notes  of  his  students,  others 
were  published  from  manuscripts  of  uncertain  ori- 
gin, and  still  others  were  manifestly  either  wholly 
or  in  part  spurious.  Great  differences  of  opinion 
exist  among  Paracelsus  scholars  as  to  the  degree 
of  authenticity  and  as  to  the  criteria  of  authenticity 
of  the  writings  attributed  to  Paracelsus. 

But  few  were  printed  during  his  lifetime,  the 
greater  part  being  published  from  twenty  to  seventy 
years  after  his  death,  and  the  original  manuscripts 
of  all  his  important  works  have  disappeared.  Jo- 
hannes Huser  of  Basel,  who  edited  the  most  authori- 
tative collection  of  his  works  (1589-91),  gathered 
together  all  available  materials  from  public  and  pri- 
vate collections,  and  evidently  carried  out  his  labori- 
ous work  with  great  fidelity  and  conscientiousness. 
He  took  pains  to  give  the  source  of  each  of  the  books 
or  articles  included,  and  among-  them  are  many  auto- 
graph manuscripts,  and  some  also  described  as  copies 
made  from  autograph  copies  known  but  not  directly 
accessible  to  him.  While  it  may  be  that  Huser  was 
at  times  deceived  in  the  autograph  character  of  a 
particular  work,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  upon  his 
statements  as  to  the  source  and  probable  authen- 
ticity of  a  particular  writing  we  are  at  present  mainly 


INTRODUCTORY.  Q 

dependent  for  the  basis  of  our  confidence  in  the 
authenticity  of  the  works  attributed  to  Paracelsus 
and  included  in  his  collected  works.  Huser  indeed 
included  many  works  in  this  collection  of  doubtful 
authenticity  even  when  he  expressed  the  belief  or 
the  knowledg'e  that  they  were  not  genuine. 

There  exists  a  letter  bv  a  certain  Bartholomaus 
Schobinger  (dated  April,  1576)  which  bears  inter- 
esting testimony  to  the  fact  that  even  at  that  time 
in  his  opinion  some  alleged  writings  of  Paracelsus 
were  not  authentic.  He  states,  "Theophrastus,  w^hom 
I  knew  very  well,  and  who  lived  twenty-seven  weeks 
in  the  house  of  my  late  brother-in-b.w,  left  behind 
him  manv  books  upon  such  things,  in  part  occult 
[z'erporgclich]  and  a  part  of  which  he  truly  did  not 
himself  understand.  .  .  .There  are  also  manv  books 
printed  under  his  name  which  Theophrastus  neither 
saw  nor  made.  For  I  knew  well  the  style  of  Theo- 
phrastus and  his  usage  in  wTiting.""^ 

No  great  value,  to  be  sure,  can  be  attached  to 
this  general  and  unsubstantiated  assertion,  but  it  is 
nevertheless  interesting  as  supporting  the  judgment 
of  Huser  as  regards  some  alleged  writings  of  Para- 
celsus. 

To  the  problem  of  separating  myth  from  fact  in 
the  life  historv  of  Paracelsus,  there  has  been  brought 
to  bear  a  large  amount  of  serious  and  scholarly  re- 
search, notably  by  German  writers  during  the  past 
thirtv  vears.     The  motive  for  this  reinvestigation 

3  Schubert  and  Sudhoff.  Paracelsiisforschunpen,  Frankfort-on-the- 
Main,  1887-89,  II,  pp.  140-44. 


lO  PARACELSUS. 

may  be  found  in  a  revival  of  interest  in  the  early 
history  of  scientific  thought.  For  important  contri- 
butions to  the  life  story  wt  are  particularly  indebted 
to  the  researches  of  Carl  Aberle,  Ed.  Schubert  and 
Carl  SudhoiT,  Raymund  Netzhammer,  R.  Julius 
Hartmann,  and  Franz  Strunz.  For  the  partial  so- 
lution of  the  problem  of  the  authenticity  of  the  works 
attributed  to  Paracelsus,  we  are  chiefly  indebted  to 
the  monumental  critical  bibliography  of  the  printed 
books  and  manuscripts  by  Karl  Sudhoff,  the  result 
of  many  vears  of  exhaustive  study  of  the  collections 
accessible  in  the  libraries  of  Europe. 

To  the  work  of  these  scholars  and  to  other  stu- 
dents of  the  work  of  Paracelsus,  and  to  authorities 
on  the  early  history  of  medicine  and  other  sciences 
during  the  past  half  century,  we  are  indebted  for 
a  new  and  better  understanding  of  the  personality, 
accomplishments  and  influence  of  the  original  and 
eccentric  Swiss  physician  and  philosopher. 


THE  EARLY  LIFE  OF  PARACELSUS. 

THEOPHRASTUS  von  Hohenheim,  or  Theo- 
phrastus  Bombastus  von  Hohenheim,  was  born 
at  Einsiedeln  in  Switzerland  on  the  17th  of  Decem- 
ber, 1493.  In  his  time  this  region  was  part  of  the 
German  P^mpire,  so  that  he  calls  himself  German  as 
well  as  Swiss.  His  father,  Wilhelm  Bombast  von 
Hohenheim,  was  at  the  time  a  practising  physician 
in  that  village.  A  portrait  of  him  bearing  the  date 
1 49 1  is  in  the  Carolino-Augusteum  Museum  in  Salz- 
burg. In  Einsiedeln  Wilhelm  von  Hohenheim  had 
married  an  "honest  person,"  a  "Gofteshausfrau  des 
Gotteshauses  unserer  liehen  Fran  zii  Einsiedeln,'^ 
and  Theophrastus  was  so  far  as  we  know  the  only 
son  and  child  of  this  union.  At  Einsiedeln  was  lo- 
cated a  Benedictine  monastery,  and  the  town  was 
then  as  now  a  place  of  pilgrimage. 

When  Theophrastus  was  about  nine  years  old 
his  father  removed  to  Villach  in  Carinthia,  where 
he  continued  to  reside  for  the  remainder  of  his  life, 
and  where  he  died  in  1534  a  respected  citizen  and 
physician,  as  contemporary  local  records  bear  wit- 
ness. 


12  PARACELSUS. 

There  was  located  at  Villach  a  mining-  school 
founded  by  the  Fuggers  of  Augsburg,  and  the  re- 
gion was  an  important  mining  district. 

It  is  probable  that  Theophrastus  received  his 
first  schooling,  and  the  beginnings  of  his  medical 
training  from  his  father.  Details  as  to  his  formal 
schooling,  either  preliminary  or  university,  are  lack- 
ing. Such  information  as  we  have  is  from  occasional 
statements  of  his  own  and  from  allusions  here  and 
there  in  his  writings  to  his  experiences  as  a  student. 
That  his  attention  was  early  drawn  to  chemistry 
seems  certain.  It  is  quite  probable  that  his  father 
had  some  knowledge  and  interest  in  chemical  pro- 
cesses as  practised  in  the  mining  regions. 

In  one  of  his  surgical  treatises,  Paracelsus,  re- 
ferring to  his  endeavors  to  eliminate  the  useless 
transmutation  experiments  of  chemistry  from  the 
experiences  useful  to  medicine,  thus  alludes  to  his 
preparation  for  that  task: 

''From  childhood  up  I  have  pursued  these  things 
and  learned  from  good  instructors  who  were  most 
thoroughly  grounded  in  the  adept  a  philosophia  and 
firmly  grounded  in  the  arts.  First,  from  Wilhelmus 
von  Hohenheim,  my  father,  who  has  never  forsaken 
me.  Afterward  and  besides  him  a  great  number 
not  necessary  to  enumerate,  and  many  writings  of 
ancients  and  moderns,  as  well,  of  various  origins ; — 
some  who  have  given  themselves  much  trouble,  as 
Bishop  Scheyt  of  Stettgach,  Bishop  Erhart  and 
his  predecessors  of  Lavantall,  Bishop  Nicolaus  of 
Yppon,  Bishop  Matthaus  Schacht,  suffragan  bishop 


THE  EARLY  LIFE  OF  PARACELSUS.  I  3 

of  Phrysingen.  And  many  abbots,  as  of  Sponheini' 
and  others,  and  many  among  the  doctors  and  their 
Hke.  And  I  have  also  had  great  experience,  and  for 
a  long  time,  with  many  alchemists  who  have  investi- 
gated those  arts,  as  namely  with  the  noble  Sigmund 
Fiiger  of  Schwatz  and  a  number  of  his  employed 
artisans."^ 

It  appears  that  Paracelsus  visited  Fiiger's  mines 
and  laboratories  at  Schwatz  in  Tyrol  when  about 
twenty-two  years  of  age  and  worked  there  for  nearly 
a  year,  thus  laying  the  foundation  of  the  extensive 
knowledge  he  possessed  of  the  usual  chemical  and 
metallurgical  processes  of  the  period  and  region. 

Whether  or  not  the  young  Theophrastus  had 
before  this  attended  any  of  the  German  universities, 
and  what  progress  he  had  made  in  medical  studies 
is  not  known.  Shortly  after  leaving  the  laboratory 
of  Fiiger  in  Schwatz  he  embarked  upon  a  career  of 
travel  covering  a  long  series  of  experiences  in  many 
countries  in  the  study  and  practice  of  his  profession. 
Of  this  period  again  the  only  information  we  have 
is  derived  from  the  brief  statements  and  allusions 
scattered  through  his  writings.  These  have  been 
examined  and  compared  as  to  their  consistency  and 
in  their  relation  to  the  local  history  and  events  of  the 
time,  by  several  scholars,  last  and  notably  by  Dr.  R. 
J.  Hartmann,  with  the  result  that  a  consistent  and 
probably  fairly  correct  outline  of  his  wanderings  has 
been  constructed. 

^  The  eminent  Trithemius,  neo-Platonic  philosopher  and  student 
of  magic  and  the  Cabbala. 

2  Chir.  Bucher  und  Schrifften  (1618),  pp.  lOlf. 


H 


PARACELSUS. 


It  appears  from  this  evidence  that  after  leaving 
Schwatz  and  up  to  the  time  of  his  appearance  as  a 
practising  physician  in  Strassburg  in  1526,  he  had 
served  in  campaigns  as  army  surgeon  or  physician 


EINSIEDELN  IN  1577. 

The  Devil's  Bridge  and  the  Paracelsus  House  will  be  discovered 
somewhat  below  the  center. 


in  Denmark  and  Sweden,  that  he  had  visited  Eng- 
land, France,  Belgium,  and  that,  probably  also  as  an 
army  surgeon,  he  had  participated  in  the  wars  in  the 
service  of  Venice  ( 1521-25) .    It  will  be  remembered 


THE  EARLY  LIFE  OF  PARACELSUS. 


m 


that  Swiss  mercenaries  were  then  largely  used  in 
the  several  wars  taking  place  in  different  parts  of 
Europe.  At  times  during  this  period  he  appears 
also  to  have  visited  or  attended  various  universities 
in  Germany,  France  and  Italy,  and  at  some  time  or 
other  received  or  assumed  the  title  of  Doctor. 

No  positive  evidence  has  been  found  that  Para- 
celsus received  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine. 
His  antagonists  in  the  profession  even  during  his 


DEVIL'S  BRIDGE  AND   PARACELSUS  HOUSE  IN   1577. 
It  is  in  this  house  that,  according  to  an  old  tradition,  Paracelsus  was 

born  in  1493. 


lifetime  disputed  his  title  to  it,  a  charge  which  he 
alludes  to  disdainfully  but  to  which  he  makes  no 
formal  reply.  On  the  other  hand,  the  assumption 
of  his  having  received  the  deg'ree  is  supported  by 
his  use  of  it  in  his  earliest  writings  and  consistently 
afterward,  by  the  presumption  that  he  would  not 
have  been  appointed  as  the  city  physician  (Stadt- 
arzt)  of  Basel  and  professor  in  the  University  with- 
out having  satisfied  the  authorities  as  to  his  technical 
qualifications.     The  records  of  his  admission  to  the 


PARACELSUS  BY  RUBENS(?) 
Brussels.     Hardly  by  Rubens  himself,  but  by  Jan  Wildens,  one  of  his 
pupils.     The  portrait  is  evidently  a  copy  of  an  earlier  one  in  the 
Louvre  at  Paris,  at  present  supposed  to  have  been  painted  by 
.  Scorel  in  1517.  but  formerly  attributed  to  Diirer, 


THE  EARLY  LIFE  OF  PARACELSUS.  1 7 

rights  of  citizenship  in  Strassbtirg  in  1526  describe 
him  as  "Doctor  of  Medicine."  Such  contemporary 
records  as  exist,  official  and  miofficial,  credit  him 
with  the  title,  but  he  nowhere  mentions  the  univer- 
sity which  conferred  the  degree,  and  the  beHef  as  to 
whether  he  received  it  at  all  or  assumed  it  is  largely 
influenced  by  the  confidence  of  any  particular  critic 
in  the  truthfulness  and  sincerity  of  Paracelsus  him- 
self. 

In  later  years  his  opponents  made  his  wandering 
life  a  matter  of  reproach,  and  his  reply  furnishes 
us  with  one  of  the  few  extended  autobiographical 
sketches  contained  in  his  writings : 

"It  is  necessary  that  I  should  answer  in  defense 
of  my  wayfaring — that  I  have  remained  nowhere 
long.  How  can  I  do  that  or  overcome  that  which 
it  is  impossible  for  me  to  do  or  to  overcome  ?  How 
can  I  add  to  or  take  away  from  that  which  is  pre- 
destined?. .  .  .The  wanderings  that  I  have  thus  far 
accomplished  have  proved  of  advantage  to  me,  for 
the  reason  that  no  one's  master  grows  in  his  own 
house  nor  his  teacher  behind  the  stove.  Also  all 
kinds  of  knowledge  are  not  confined  to  the  father- 
land but  scattered  throughout  the  whole  world.  They 
are  not  in  one  man  nor  in  one  place.  They  must 
be  brought  together,  sought  and  found  where  they 
exist.  The  stars  bear  witness  that  their  inclina- 
tions are  scattered  wide  and  not  for  each  one  in 
his  own  village,  but  according  to  the  nature  of 
the  higher  spheres,  the  radii  pass  to  their  goals. 
Is  it  not  proper  for  me  to  seek  out  these  g'oals  and 


1 8  PARACELSU§. 

to  find  out  the  effects  in  each?     Tf  I  should  fail  in 
this  regard  I  should  not  worthily  he  the  Theophras- 
tus  that  I  am.    Is  it  not  true  that  knowledge  pursues 
no  one  but  that  it  must  be  sought?     Therefore  I 
have  right  and  reason — that  I  should  go  to  seek  it, 
and  not  it  me.  .  .  .Thus,  if  any  one  wishes  to  see  a 
person  or  a  city,  to  learn  their  manners  and  customs, 
of  their  constellations  and  the  nature  of  their  ele- 
ments he  must  pursue  them ....  How  can  a  good 
cosmographer  or  geographer  develop  behind    the 
stove?     Does  not  seeing  with  the  eyes  give  a  true 
foundation  ?....!  have  heard  repeatedly  from  those 
experienced  in  the  laws  that  it  is  written  in  the  laws 
that  a  physician  must  be  a  traveler.     This  pleases 
me  very  well  for  the  reason  that  diseases  wander 
hither  and  thither  as  wide  as  the  world  is,  and  do 
not  remain  in  one  place.     If  one  will  know  many 
diseases  he  must  wander  also.     If  he  travels  far  he 
experiences  much  and  learns  to  know  much.  .  .  . 
Does  not  travel  give  more  knowledge  than  sitting 
behind  the  stove  ? .  .  .  .  Not  merely  to  describe  coun- 
tries as  to  how  they  wear  their  trousers,  but  cour- 
ageously to  attack  the  problem  as  to  what  kinds  of 
diseases  they  possess ....  For  the  arts  have  no  feet 
so  that  the  butcher  can  drive  them  to  you,  they  are 
not  brought  in  on  cushions  nor  enclosed  in  casks. 
Since  that  is  their  nature  you  must  pursue  them,  as 
they  cannot  come  to  you.     The  English    humors 
[humor es]  are  not  the  Hungarian,  nor  the  Neapoli- 
tan, the  Prussian ;  therefore  you  must  go  where  they 
are,  and  the  more  you  seek  them,  and  the  more  you 


ALTERIVS    NON    SIT    Qyi    SW$    ESSE    POTEST 


AVEZOLVS    PHILIPPVS 

AB  HOHENHEIM, 

Ju.tnwuUt  nobilium  oeniiuj  PARjICELSvS 

Qua  v-ehis  UeLuiia  clartt  Ertinuj  hurrio. 
Su  ccmIoj  c/lc  ora.  tuLt.  c-um  plurtma  L^i^un 
JDuccndi f/tudio  ptr  loca  J'uU  iter 

J.  Tinttrrtt  ad  intuun  ptnsut 


THEOPHRASTVS   BOMBAST 

DICTV5    PAiL'VCELSVS 

Ltuffrxi    n,num  cf  medium  vuctt  l^flro  anct 

Ludurum 
Poftqwt    tiioi   LJtrv-fwncmi.  Erajme.,  fvaoj^ 
Ajtra  tiualcr  jCTta  Jcptcmlmj    luce  JubiuU. 
OjsoJuyburpa.    nunc   ccncrcj^ue jactnt 

f  ChoMueau  Jculpsk^ 


PARACELSUS  BY  TINTORETTO(  ?) 
Engraved  by  F.  Chauveau.   Maybe  by  an  artist  of  about  1520-25,  when 
Paracelsus  was  in  the  Venetian  wars.    Tintoretto  was  born  1518.* 

*  For  data  concerning  portraits  we  are  chiefly  indebted  to  the 
scholarly  researches  of  Dr.  Karl  Aberle,  Grabdenkmal,  Schddel  und 
Ahhildnngen  des  Theophrastus  Paracelsus,  Salzburg,  1887-91. 


20  PARACELSUS. 

experience,  the  greater  will  be  your  understanding 
in  your  own  fatherland.  Also  it  is  necessary  that 
the  physician  be  a  chemist  [Alchymist].  If  now  he 
wishes  to  be  such,  he  must  seek  out  the  matrices  in 
which  the  minerals  grow.  But  the  mountains  will 
not  come  to  him,  he  must  go  to  them.  Where  the 
minerals  are  there  are  also  the  experts  who  know 
them.... I  pass  over  other  things  that  he  who 
wanders  hither  and  thither  gains  in  knowledge  of 
many  peoples — experience  of  all  kinds  of  habits  and 
customs,  to  see  which,  one  should  be  willing  to  wear 
out  his  shoes  and  hat.  Does  not  a  lover  go  a  long- 
way  to  see  a  pretty  woman?  How  much  better  to 
pursue  a  beautiful  art!  If,  then,  there  exists  such 
a  need  [to  travel]  how  can  one  be  condemned  and 
despised  for  so  doing?  It  is  indeed  true  that  those 
who  do  not  roam  have  greater  possessions  than 
those  who  do;  those  who  sit  behind  the  stove  eat 
partridges,  and  those  that  follow  after  knowledge 
eat  milk-broth.  Those  who  hug  the  fireplace  [  Win- 
kelbldser]  wear  silks  and  golden  chains,  those  who 
wander  are  scarce  able  to  pay  for  their  homespun; 
those  within  the  town-walls  have  it  cold  or  warm  as 
they  wish,  those  in  the  arts  —  if  there  were  no 
trees — would  have  no  shade.  He  who  will  serve 
the  belly — he  will  not  follow  after  me,  he  will  follow 
those  who  go  about  in  fine  clothing.  Yet  travel  is 
not  for  such  as  these,  for  Juvenal  has  said  he  alone 
wanders  joyfully  who  has  nothing.  Therefore  let 
them  conform  to  that  saying — that  they  may  not  be 
murdered  let  them  stay  behind  the  stove  and  turn 


THE  EARLY  LIFE  OF  PARACELSUS.  21 

pears  before  the  fire.  Therefore  I  consider  that  it 
is  for  me  a  matter  of  praise,  not  of  blame,  that  I 
have  hitherto  and  worthily  pursued  my  wanderings. 
For  this  will  I  bear  witness  respecting  nature:  he 
who  will  investigate  her  ways  must  travel  her  books 
with  his  feet.  That  which  is  written  is  investigated 
through  its  letters,  but  nature  from  land  to  land — 
as  often  a  land  so  often  a  leaf.  Thus  is  the  Codex 
of  Nature,  thus  must  its  leaves  be  turned."^ 

In  the  year   1526,  at  about  the  age  of  thirty, 


SEAL  OF  PARACELSUS      COAT  OF  ARMS  OF  THE  BOM- 
BASTS OF  HOHENHEIM 

Paracelsus  is  again  found  in  Germany.  It  appears 
that  he  soon  attracted  attention  as  an  original  and 
skilful  physician,  though  the  conventionally  trained 
physicians  viewed  him  with  suspicion  and  hostility. 
'T  pleased  no  one  but  the  sick  whom  I  cured,"  is  his 
own  statement  of  the  situation. 

The  official  records  of  Strassburg  show  that  in 

1526    "Theophrastus  von  Hohenheim,    Doctor    of 

Medicine,  has  purchased  the  citizenship  [Burgrecht] 

and  serves  with  the  Luzerne.    Enacted  Wednesday 

3  Op.  fol,  I,  257ff. 


22  PARACELSUS. 

after 'Andreas  Apostate  [Dec.  Sth]."  The  guild  of 
Luzerne  was  that  of  the  grain-dealers  and  millers 
to  which  also  the  surgeons  belonged.^ 

Before  entering,  however,  upon  his  duties  and 
privileges  at  Strassburg,  he  received  the  offer  of 
the  position  of  Stadtarzt  or  city  physician  at  Basel, 
a  position  which  carried  with  it  the  functions  of  a 
professorship  in  medicine  at  the  University.  In  the 
Preface  to  his  manuscript  De  gradibus,  dated  No- 
vember, 1526,  he  signs  himself  'Thysicus  et  Ordi- 
narius  Basiliensis,"  that  is  to  say,  Physician  and 
Professor  at  Basel. 

The  story  of  his  appointment  at  Basel  is  inter- 
esting. The  distinguished  book-publisher  of  Basel, 
Johann  Froben  (Frobenius)  was  suffering  from  a 
painful  illness  which  defied  the  efforts  of  the  phy- 
sicians. Hearing  of  the  remarkable  skill  of  the  new 
physician,  he  sent  to  him  at  Strassburg  to  come  to 
Basel,  and  through  his  ministrations  found  speedy 
relief.  Froben's  house  in  Basel  was  frequented  by 
a  number  of  scholarly  persons,  notably  b}^  Erasmus 
who  at  that  time  lived  in  Froben's  house  and  by 
CEcolampadius,  then  professor  of  theology  in  the 
University  of  Basel,  both  prominent  in  the  reforma- 
tion movement  in  Switzerland.  Impressed  by  the 
personality  and  medical  skill  of  the  new  physician, 
these  men — and  particularly,  it  is  said,  CEcolampa- 
dius— prevailed  on  the  city  authorities  (Sfadfrath) 
to  oft'er  the  then  vacant  position  of  city  physician  to 
Paracelsus,  an  offer  which  was  at  once  accepted. 

■*  Cf.  Schubert  and  Sudhoff,  Paracelsnsforschungen,  II,  p.  3. 


THE  EARLY  LIFE  OF  PARACELSUS.  23 

We  have  evidence  of  the  good  impression  made 
by  Paracelsus  on  Froben  and  his  friends  in  a  letter 
of  Erasmus  written  to  Paracelsus  some  time  later — 
probably  during  the  summer  of  1 526.  The  letter  of 
Erasmus  is  in  reply  to  a  letter  of  the  physician  in 
which  he  has  given  directions  and  prescriptions  for 
certain  ailments  of  Erasmus,  and  though  the  general 
tone  of  the  letter  of  Erasmus  is  expressive  of  some 
dissatisfaction  as  to  the  indefiniteness  of  his  direc- 
tions it  concludes,  'T  cannot  offer  thee  a  reward 
equal  to  thy  art  and  knowledge — I  surely  offer  thee 


SIGNATURE  OF  PARACELSUS  IN  1528, 

reading:   "Theophrastus  Bombast  ex  Hohenheim  D."     Cf.   Schubert 

and  Sudhoff,  op.  cit.,  II,  p.  73. 

a  grateful  soul.  Thou  hast  recalled  from  the  shades 
[ab  inferis]  Frobenius  who  is  my  other  half:  if  thou 
restorest  me  also  thou  restorest  each  through  the 
other  [iitrumque  in  singulis].  May  fortune  faA^or 
that  thou  remain  in  Basel." 

Paracelsus  evidently  entered  upon  his  important 
position  as  cit)^  physician  and  university  teacher 
with  zeal  and  energy,  He  had  returned  from  his 
extensive  experience  in  foreign  lands  and  his  con- 
tact with  different  notions  of  the  practice  and  theory 
of  medicine  with  distinctly  radical  ideas.  He  doubt- 
less hailed  with  enthusiasm  and  much  self-assurance 


24  PARACELSUS. 

this  Opportunity  to  propagate  his  ideas  as  to  the  re- 
form of  medical  theory  and  practice.  That  Para- 
celsus overestimated  at  the  time  his  ability  to  in- 
fluence the  ultraconservative,  traditional,  dogmatic 
medicine  of  his  time,  and  that  he  greatly  under- 
estimated the  strength  of  the  forces  whose  antagon- 
ism he  challenged  is  also  certain. 

His  experience  at  Basel  soon  forced  him  to  real- 
ize that  the  victory  of  his  ideas  was  distant,  and 
though  he  never  ceased  his  efforts,  the  bitterness 
of  his  disappointments  and  resentments  against  the 
persecutions  and  abuse  of  his  opponents  gave  color 
and  character  to  his  later  life. 


THE  PARACELSAN  VIEW  OF  NATURE. 

THAT  we  may  be  able  to  comprehend  the  nature 
of  the  conflict  between  the  theories  of  Paracel- 
sus and  the  traditional  dogmatic  philosophy  which 
he  opposed,  it  is  essential  that  we  attempt  to  under- 
stand something  of  the  current  thought  in  the  do- 
mains in  which  Paracelsus  endeavored  to  impress 
his  reformatory  ideas. 

His  great  aim  was  to  break  the  bonds  of  ancient 
authority  and  accepted  dogma  which  had  for  cen- 
turies held  medical  science  enchained,  and  to  open 
the  way  for  the  foundation  of  that  science  upon  a 
basis  of  open-minded  experience,  experiment  and 
observation,  or,  as  he  expresses  it,  on  the  "Light  of 
Nature.'' 

But  "nature''  to  the  view  of  the  school  of  philos- 
ophy which  Paracelsus  adopted  comprehended  much 
that  to  our  modern  view  is  occult  or  supernatural. 
It  comprised  the  influence  of  the  stars  upon  the  life 
and  health  of  men  and  many  other  mysterious  phe- 
nomena then  generally  credited  by  all  classes  of 
people.  The  knowledge  of  nature  was  to  be  achieved 
not  merely,  therefore,  by  the  eyes  and  the  hands — 
by  experiment  and  observation  as  we  understand 


26  ■  PARACELSUS. 

the  study  of  nature — but  also  by  a  more  mystical 
insight  into  the  hidden  properties  of  things. 

For  Paracelsus  the  phenomena  of  nature,  seen  or 
hidden,  are  the  revelation  of  God's  will  to  man  in 
all  those  things  relating  to  his  physical  and  material 
welfare — just  as  the  teachings  of  Christ  are  for  him 
the  revelation  of  God's  will  to  man  in  things  spir- 
itual. Hence  the  physician  as  the  highest  human 
agent  of  God's  will  to  man,  must  be  thoroughly 
grounded  in  the  complete  knowledge  of  nature,  and 
as  thoroughly  in  obedience  to  the  teachings  of  Christ. 
For  the  interpretation  of  the  phenomena  of  nature  as 
for  the  interpretation  of  the  teachings  of  Christ,  he 
claims  the  right  for  himself  and  for  his  individual 
judgment,  and  refuses  to  accept  the  authority  of 
ancient  Greek  philosophers  or  physicians  —  or  of 
Church-Fathers  or  other  sources  of  dogmatic  the- 
ology. 

The  study  of  nature  and  its  phenomena  was,  it 
may  be  remembered,  the  latest  field  to  feel  the  Re- 
naissance impulse,  and  it  was  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury still  largely  dominated  by  the  medieval  point  of 
view. 

"To  the  Middle  Ages  and  its  scholastic  science," 
says  Windelband,'  "nature  was  a  closed  book  upon 
which  the  Church  had  placed  its  seal.  Nature  was 
the  profane,  the  wicked;  it  was  hated,  combated, 
despised,  oppressed,  anathematized,  anything  but 
known,  investigated  or  understood.  And  in  the 
natural  recoil  there  took  possession  of  the  spirit 

1  Geschichte  der  neueren  Philosophie,  Leipsic,  1907,  I,  p.  42. 


THE  PARACELSAN  VIEW  OF  NATURE.  2'J 

awakening  to  freedom,  conscious  of  its  power,  a 
longing  for  nature,  for  a  natural  form  of  life,  for  a 
knowledge  and  command  of  the  forces  of  nature. 

''But  nature  was  a  mystery.  She  seemed  to  wish 
to  be  revealed  through  a  mysterious  knowledge.  It 
was  felt  that  living  nature  was  not  to  be  approached 
through  the  scholastic  concepts  of  science,  its  dem- 
onstrations and  determinations,  and  before  a  new 
method  was  arrived  at,  it  was  believed  that  nature 
vvas  to  be  approached  through  some  peculiar  reve- 
lation, by  a  mystical  secret  doctrine,  and  thus  the 
struggle  toward  the  knowledge  of  nature  took  at 
first  a  fantastic  direction." 

Or  as  Cassirer^  summarizes  the  natural  philos- 
ophy of  the  Renaissance,  ''Through  the  dense  veil 
with  which  fantasy  and  superstition  surround  them, 
there  nevertheless  emerge  the  outlines  and  forms 
of  a  new  view  of  the  eternal  reality.  The  intel- 
lectual labor  of  the  time  leads  but  rarely  to  sure 
and  fruitful  results  with  which  later  science  can 
connect,  but  it  nevertheless  anticipates,  in  symbolic 
form  and  language,  general  processes  of  thought 
which  are  to  be  repeated  in  the  upbuilding  of  sci- 
ence.'^ 

These  characterizations  apply  well  to  the  con- 
cepts of  nature  and  natural  phenomena  in  the  time 
of  Paracelsus  and  as  found  in  his  own  writines. 

Among  the  conventional  scholars  of  the  time 
the  prevailing  natural  philosophy  was  a  degenerate 

2  Das  Erkenntnisproblem  in  der  Philosophie  und  Wissenschaft  der 
neueren  Zeit  (2d  ed.),  Berlin,  1911,  I,  p.  205. 


28  PARACELSUi: 

Aristotelianism,  which  had  been  transmitted,  modi- 
fied and  obscured  by  Arabian  interpreters  and 
through  Oriental  influences  corrupted  by  much 
more  of  mysticism  than  existed  in  the  original  Greek 
sources.  During  the  Renaissance  there  had  devel- 
oped a  revival  of  the  neo-Platonic  philosophy.  The 
generally  credited  originator  of  this  revival  is  Nicho- 
las of  Cusa  ( 1401-1464),  but  its  chief  propagandists 
were  in  the  Florentine  Academy — notably  Giovanni 
Pico  della  Mirandola  (1463-94)  and  Marsilius  Fici- 
nus  (1433-99).  Through  the  latter  this  somewhat 
fantastic  natural  philosophy  had  spread  to  Germany, 
where  Reuchlin  (1455-1522),  Trithemius  (1462- 
15 16),  Cornelius  Agrippa  von  Nettesheim  (1486- 
1535)  were  prominent  exponents,  while  in  France 
Bovillus  (1476-1553)  was  a  prominent  representa- 
tive. 

Of  these  men  Trithemius  has  previously  been 
named  in  a  quotation  from  Paracelsus  as  among  his 
teachers.  Ficinus  and  Agrippa  are  also  mentioned 
by  him  as  authors  with  whose  works  he  is  familiar. 
Agrippa's  lifetime,  it  will  be  observed,  is  contempo- 
raneous with  Paracelsus's — in  fact,  he  was  but  a  few 
years  older.  It  may  be  safely  assumed  that  to  one 
or  more  of  this  school  Paracelsus  was  indebted  for 
the  fundamental  notions  of  his  philosophy  of  nature 
— whether  directly  to  Ficinus  and  Lullus,  as  Pro- 
fessor Sigwart^  thinks,  or  to  Agrippa,  as  Alfred 
Lehmann*  believes,  is  at  present  difficult  to  decide. 

3  Chr.  Sigwart,  Kleine  Schriften,  2d  ed.,  Freiburg,  1889,  I,  p.  42. 
*  A.  Lehmann,  Aberglaube  und  Zauherei,  etc.,  2d  ed.,  Stuttgart,  1908. 


THE  PARACELSAN  VIEW  OF  NATURE.  2Q 

Lehmann  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  Pico  della 
Mirandola  wrote  his  Conclusiones  cabbalisticae  in 
i486  and  that  a  pupil  of  his  [Ficinus?]  initiated 
Trithemius  into  the  Cabbala.  Trithemius  was  a 
friend  of  Reuchlin  who  was  a  profound  student  of 
Hebrew  and  of  the  Cabbala.  From  Reuchlin 
Agrippa  probably  received  the  foundations  of  the 
theory  and  he  also  was  a  friend  of  Trithemius. 

As  Paracelsus  mentions  both  Ficinus  and 
Agrippa,  and  acknowledges  Trithemius  as  his 
teacher,  we  may  well  believe  that  he  drew  from  all 
these  sources  in  the  construction  of  his  own  theories. 
Though  the  natural  philosophy  of  Paracelsus  was 
deeply  rooted  in  the  neo-Platonic  philosophy  of  the 
Florentine  Academy,  yet  Paracelsus  was  too  original 
and  venturesome  a  thinker  to  be  a  strict  adherent 
of  any  particular  form  of  philosophy.  It  probably 
especially  appealed  to  him  because  it  was  in  the  na- 
ture of  a  revolt  from  the  dry  and  lifeless  Aristo- 
telianism  of  the  day,  and  because  it  opened  the  path 
to  the  recognition  of  the  value  of  experiment  and 
observation  as  the  basis  for  the  development  of  med- 
icine. 

Fantastic  as  the  neo-Platonic  philosophy  of  that 
time  seems  to  our  present  views,  there  was  much  in 
it  to  appeal  to  the  popular  notions  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries.  The  attempt  to  unite  into 
a  quasi  natural  philosophy  the  many  mysterious 
phenomena  of  nature  as  they  presented  themselves 
to  the  belief  of  that  time — the  supernatural  phenom- 
ena as  well  as  many  equally  mysterious  natural  phe- 


30  PARACELSUS. 

noniena — was  inspiring  to  the  imagination.  The 
"natural  magic"  of  Agrippa  and  the  philosophy  of 
Paracelsus  attempted  to  give  rational  explanations 
of  many  things  which  the  orthodox  philosophy  of 
the  period  accounted  for  only  in  a  purely  mystical 
sense. 

A  fundamental  concept  of  this  neo-Platonic  phi- 
losophy was  the  interrelation  of  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  universe,  such  that  every  phenomenon  has  an 
influence  upon  every  other.  As  the  earth  w^as  con- 
sidered the  center  of  the  material  universe,  so  man 
w^as  considered  in  a  higher  sense  the  center  and  the 
epitome  of  the  external  universe.  Man  is  the  micro- 
cosm, the  external  universe  the  macrocosm.  Through 
their  spirits  or  occult  properties  all  things  in  the 
universe,  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  plants  and  ani- 
mals, metals  and  w^aters,  may  ex:ert  definite  influ- 
ences upon  man,  his  mental  and  physical  states.  So, 
too,  it  is  not  impossible  that  man  through  knowledge 
of  these  occult  or  hidden  properties  of  things  may 
be  able  to  influence  the  powders  of  nature  in  mar- 
velous ways.  Or,  as  says  Cassirer°  in  discussing  the 
philosophy  of  the  French  neo-Platonist  Bovillus;  the 
in^^estigation  of  the  macrocosm  is  to  enable  us  to 
obtain  clearer  views  of  what  takes  place  in  the  micro- 
cosm— "In  fantastic  analogies  the  comparison  of  the 
universe  with  human  life  is  developed  and  inter- 
preted." 

Lehmann^  has  given  us  a  synopsis  of  the  natural 
magic  of  Agrippa,  and  the  resemblance  to  much  of 

5  op.  cit.,  I,  p.  63  6  Op.  cit.,  pp.  195-202. 


THE  PARACELSAN  VIEW  OF  NATURE.  3T 

Paracelsus's  theories  is  striking.  Agrippa  attributes 
to  all  objects  in  the  universe  sympathies  and  antipa- 
thies, and  believes  that  by  influencing  these  sympa- 
thies and  antipathies  by  appropriate  methods  ex- 
traordinary or  supernatural  results  might  be  ob- 
tained. "This  natural  magic,"  says  Lehmann,  "first 
attained  great  importance  when  its  fundamental 
ideas  with  certain  changes  were  adopted  as  an  es- 
sential element  in  the  medical  system  of  Paracelsus.'' 
Agrippa  says,  "The  world  is  threefold,  namely,  ele- 
mentary, sidereal,  spiritual.  Everything  lower  is 
ruled  by  the  higher  and  receives  thence  its  power. 
Thus  the  Architect  and  Prot(5type  of  the  universe 
lets  the  powers  of  His  omnipotence  flow  out  through 
the  angels,  the  heavens,  the  stars,  the  elements,  the 
animals,  plants,  rocks,  and  thence  into  man."  And 
thus,  thinks  Agrippa,  it  becomes  possible  for  man 
through  the  powers  of  nature  to  reascend  the  ladder 
and  to  gain  supernatural  powers  and  knowledge. 
This  natural  magic  is  to  him  the  greatest  of  the 
sciences.  It  comprises:  Physics,  or  the  knowledge 
of  the  nature  of  things  which  are  in  the  universe — 
their  causes,  actions,  times,  places,  appearances,  as 
a  whole  and  in  its  parts ;  Mathematics,  which  teaches 
us  to  know  nature  in  three  dimensions  and  to  ob- 
serve the  paths  of  the  heavenly  bodies;  Theology, 
which  teaches  us  of  God,  the  soul,  intelligences, 
angels,  devils  and  religion;  it  teaches  us  also  the 
sacred  observances,  forms  and  mysteries ;  and  finally 
it  informs  us  concerning  the  faith  and  the  miracles, 
the  powers  of  words  and  symbols  and  the  sacred 


32  PARACELSUS. 

Operations  and  mysteries  of  the  se^ls.  These  three 
sciences  the  natural  magic  brings  together  and  per- 
fects. He  who  does  not  know  these  three  sciences 
cannot  understand  the  rationahty  of  magic. 

Agrippa  supposes  all  substances  to  be  composed 
of  the  four  Aristotelian  elements,  Fire,  Earth, 
Water  and  Air.  Everything  is  composed  of  these, 
not  by  a  simple  heaping  together  but  by  combination 
and  metamorphosis,  and  everything  falls  back,  when 
it  perishes,  into  the  elements.  None  of  these  ele- 
ments occurs  pure  in  nature,  but  they  are  more  or 
less  mixed  and  may  be  confused  with  one  another. 
Each  of  the  four  eleitients  has  two  special  qualities 
of  which  one  is  the  characteristic  quality,  the  other 
forms  the  transition  to  another  element.  This  is 
represented  by  a  diagram  illustrating  the  four  quali- 
ties and  the  four  elements  in  their  relation  to  one 
another — in  the  Aristotelian  fashion: 

hot  —  Fire  —  dry 

A  ir 1 Earth 

moist — Water — cold 

According  to  Agrippa  also,  all  things  of  higher 
nature  or  sphere  in  the  three  divisions  or  worlds  of 
the  universe,  influence  the  lower,  but  the  lower  also 
influence  the  higher,  though  in  less  degree.  Also 
all  things  in  the  same  sphere  influence  one  another 
in  that  everything  attracts  and  is  attracted  by  its 
like. 

The  philosophy  of  Paracelsus  presents  distinct 
resemblances  to  that  of  Agrippa.    The  form  of  the 


THE  PARACELSAN  VIEW  OF  NATURE.  33 

neo-Platonic  philosophy  presented  by  Agrippa  may 
well  have  served  as  his  starting-point,  but  the  dif- 
ferences are  also  important.  Paracelsus  was  mani- 
festly quite  in  agreement  with  Agrippa  as  to  the 
three  divisions  of  the  universe  and  their  mutual  in- 
fluences upon  one  another.  The  concepts  of  man  as 
the  microcosm,  and  the  outer  universe  as  the  mac- 
rocosm, and  that  by  the  study  of  the  macrocosm  the 
knowledge  of  the  microcosm  must  be  reached,  were 
with  Paracelsus  as  with  Agrippa  and  also  with  his 
contemporary  Bovillus,  dominant  ideas. 

Instead,  however,  of  the  three  sciences  of  Agrip- 
pa, Physics  (meaning  natural  philosophy).  Mathe- 
matics (including  magic  numbers  —  the  Cabbala) 
and  Theology,  upon  which  is  founded  the  Science  of 
Natural  Magic,  Paracelsus  substitutes  Philosophy 
(meaning  also  natural  philosophy).  Astronomy, 
Alchemy  (meaning-  chemistry)  and  Virtue  (or 
righteousness),  which  he  constitutes  the  four  pillars 
upon  which  the  Science  of  Medicine  must  rest. 
"Virtue"  as  a  separate  science  differs  from  the 
''Theology"  of  Agrippa  mainly  in  the  rejection  by 
Paracelsus  of  the  many  forms,  ceremonies  and  mir- 
acles upon  which  Agrippa  places  emphasis. 

Paracelsus  rejects  the  four  Aristotelian  elements 
as  the  determining  constituent  principles  of  all 
bodies  and  substitutes  for  them  his  three  alchemical 
elements.  Mercury,  the  principle  of  liquidity  and 
volatility.  Sulphur,  the  principle  of  combustibility, 
and  Salt,  that  principle  which  is  permanent  and  re- 
sists the  action  of  fire. 


34  PARACELSUS. 

The  philosophy  of  nature  as  presented  by  Para- 
celsus differed  even  more  in  the  emphasis  and  the 
application  of  the  fundamental  ideas  than  in  the 
formal  philosophical  notions.  For  Paracelsus  was 
not  a  closet  philosopher.  His  reasoning  was  often 
loose  and  careless.  He  was,  it  would  seem,  not  so 
much  interested  in  elaborating  a  natural  philosophy 
for  its  own  sake  as  in  utilizing  the  neo-Platonic 
system  in  which  he  had  been  more  or  less  schooled 
as  a  substitute  for  the  Aristotelian  and  Galenic  phi- 
losophy which  to  his  mind  stood  in  the  way  of  the 
rational  development  of  the  science  of  medicine  on  the 
basis  of  the  study  of  nature.  His  adaptation  of  the 
current  neo-Platonic  theories  was  not  so  much  a 
carefully  thought-out  and  consistent  philosophy  as 
it  was  an  imaginative  adaptation  of  such  elements 
of  it  as  could  fit  into  the  system  of  things  as  he  saw 
them,  and  he  introduced  such  modifications  and  ex- 
tensions as  harmonized  with  his  medical,  chemical 
and  theological  ideas — ideas  which  he  had  arrived 
at  not  only  through  the  conventional  channels  of  the 
schools,  for  which  sources  indeed  he  felt  but  little 
respect,  but  also  through  his  contact  with  a  wider 
school  of  observation  and  experience  among  all 
classes  of  people  and  in  many  lands. 

Thus  his  system  of  philosophy,  less  consistent 
and  less  logically  developed  than  the  philosophy 
presented  by  Ficinus,  Bovillus,  or  even  by  Agrippa, 
nevertheless,  because  it  had  application  to  the  prac- 
tical profession  of  medicine  and  chemistry,  was  of 
more  direct  influence  on  the  common  thought  of  the 


THE  PARAGELSAN  VIEW  OF  NATURE.  35 

time.  As  a  recent  writer  has  expressed  it/  'Tara- 
celsus  arrived  at  his  mystical  system  long  before 
Copernicus  appeared.  The  great  impulse  that  pro- 
ceeded from  the  latter  and  produced  a  cosmological 
thinking  and  view-point  had  not  reached  him.  Never- 
theless, he  as  metaphysician  was  the  first  who  saw  the 
world  as  in  motion.  Nearly  a  century  after  him  [sic] 
arose  Giordano  Bruno.  Cardan  also  was  younger 
than  Paracelsus.  The  only  influence  which  could  have 
reached  him  from  outside,  apart  from  the  medieval 
influence  of  Meister  Eckehart,  was  that  of  the  re- 
vivified neo-Platonism,  that  fashionable  philosophy 
of  the  late  Renaissance.  But  that  was  only  a  cold 
transparent  metaphysics  of  ideas,  which  must  have 
hindered  rather  than  have  furthered  the  develop- 
ment of  a  metaphysics  of  nature,  so  warm,  so  full  of 
life  and  actuality  as  was  that  which  Paracelsus  has 
given  us.  For  this  was  remarkable — that  his  mysti- 
cism was  always  a  mysticism  of  actuality — that  his 
cosmos  always  remained  nature." 

Or  to  quote  from  the  eminent  historian  of  phi- 
losophy J.  H.  Erdmann:^  ''Although  the  doctrine 
of  the  Macrocosm  and  Microcosm  was  of  primitive 
antiquity  and  had  even  lately  been  emphasized  by 
Raymond  of  Sabunde,  vs^ho  had  not  remained  un- 
known to  Paracelsus,  yet  it  is  only  since  and  by 
means  of  the  latter  that  it  was  made  the  central 
point  of  the  whole  of  philosophy.     He  designates 

"^  Moeller  van  den  Bruck,  Die  Deutschen,  Minden  i.  W.,  n.  d.  (1904), 
III,  p.  74. 

^History  of  Philosophy  (trans,  by  W.  S.  Hough),  London,  1893, 
I,  p.  613. 


36  PARACELSUS. 

nature  as  the  sphere  of  philosophy  and  hence  ex- 
cludes from  the  latter  all  theology.  Not  as  though 
the  two  were  antagonistic,  or  as  though  theology 
were  subordinated  to  philosophy,  but  the  works  of 
God  are  either  works  of  nature  or  works  of  Christ : 
the  former  are  comprehended  by  philosophy,  the 
latter  by  theology.'' 

While  it  is  foreign  to  the  purpose  of  this  treat- 
ment to  describe  in  great  detail  the  natural  philos- 
ophy of  Paracelsus,  a  brief  summary  of  some  of  the 
more  characteristic  features  will  serve  to  enable  us 
better  to  understand  the  influence  and  significance 
they  possessed  for  the  time  in  which  he  wrote. 

Paracelsus  divides  the  external  universe  or  mac- 
rocosm into  three  worlds,  the  visible  and  tangible; 
the  astral  (or  sidereal),  the  world  of  the  heavenly 
bodies ;  and  the  celestial,  or  the  divine  and  spiritual. 
Similarly  he  sees  in  man,  the  microcosm,  three  cor- 
responding spheres,  the  visible  and  tangible,  that 
is,  the  fluids,  organs,  bones,  etc. ;  the  astral,  the  sen- 
sations, seeing,  feeling,  perception ;  the  celestial,  the 
soul  (Seele).  The  sciences  which  treat  of  these 
three  divisions  of  the  macrocosm,  are  philosophy, 
the  science  of  the  phenomena  of  nature;  astronomy 
(and  astrology)  ;  and  theology  or  virtue  (proprie- 
tas).  As,  however,  the  microcosm  is  to  be  under- 
stood and  interpreted  through  the  macrocosm,  he 
who  would  know  what  takes  place  in  man,  and  what 
affects  his  life,  health,  and  well-being  must  be  thor- 
oughly grounded  in  these  three  sciences.  To  these 
Paracelsus  adds  alchemy,  which  term,  however,  he 


THE  PARACELSAN  VIEW  OF  NATURE.  37 

uses  in  the  sense  of  chemistry  rather  than  in  the 
mystical  sense  which  at  present  we  attribute  to  the 
word  alchemy.  He  adds  chemistry  as  the  fourth 
pillar  of  medicine,  as  he  considers  that  all  sub- 
stances, even  the  four  Aristotelian  elements,  are 
made  up  of  the  three  chemical  principles  Mercury, 
Sulphur  and  Salt,  and  the  processes  in  nature  which 
effect  changes  in  the  forms  of  matter  are  similar  in 
character  to  the  changes  which  may  be  produced  in 
the  laboratory  of  the  chemist.  Nature  is  herself  an 
alchemist.    So  he  says  :^ 

''Now  further  as  to  the  third  foundation  on 
which  medicine  stands,  which  is  alchemy.  When 
the  physician  is  not  skilled  and  experienced  to  the 
highest  and  greatest  degree  in  this  foundation,  all 
his  art  is  in  vain.  For  nature  is  so  subtle  and  so 
keen  in  her  matters  that  she  will  not  be  used  without 
great  art.  For  she  yields  nothing  that  is  perfected, 
in  its  natural  state,  but  man  must  perfect  it.  This 
perfecting  is  called  alchemy.  For  the  baker  is  an 
alchemist  when  he  bakes  bread,  the  vine-grower 
when  he  makes  wine,  the  weaver  when  he  makes 
cloth.  Therefore  whatever  grows  in  nature  useful 
to  man — whoever  brings  it  to  the  point  to  which  it 
was  ordered  by  nature,  he  is  an  alchemist." 

When  Paracelsus  speaks  of  philosophy  as  the 
knowledge  of  nature — ''As  now  the  physician  must 
develop  from  nature — what  is  nature  other  than 
philosophy? — what  is  philosophy  other  than  invis- 
ible nature  ?''^^ — it  should  be  kept  in  mind  that  to  his 

9  op.  fol,  I,  219,  "Paragranum."  ^'^  Ibid.,  I,  205. 


38  PARACELSUS. 

mind  as  to  his  contemporaries  generally,  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature  included  a  great  number  of  sup- 
posed facts  which  the  knowledge  of  our  day  rele- 
gates to  the  domain  of  fable  and  superstition.  The 
influences  of  the  stars,  of  angels  and  devils,  spirits 
of  the  air  or  the  waters,  gnomes  and  nymphs  were 
generally  credited  in  his  time.  The  neo-Platonic 
view  of  the  universe  which  Paracelsus  represented 
encouraged  the  belief  in  such  existences  by  its  as- 
sumption of  the  influences  exerted  by  all  things 
upon  one  another  and  upon  man  through  the  sym- 
pathies and  antipathies  of  their  spirits  (Geister). 
The  belief  in  the  influence  of  the  stars  was  well-nigh 
universal,  and  "astronomy"  comprehended  "astrol- 
ogy." The  customary  interpretation  of  the  nature 
of  the  influence  of  the  heavenly  bodies  upon  man's 
health  was  purely  mystical.  Troels-Lund"  quotes 
from  H.  Ranzau  (1676),  a  post-Paracelsan  writer, 
the  following  discussion  which  may  be  accepted  as 
fairly  representing  the  conventional  and  purely  mys- 
tical view  of  the  matter : 

"The  first  cause  of  disease  is  the  fall  of  the  first 
man  with  which  came  sin  and  death  into  the  world. 
The  second  cause  is  the  influence  of  the  stars.  God 
created  these  not  only  that  we  may  be  able  to  meas- 
ure the  years,  months  and  days,  but  also  that  they 
should  be  a  sisrn  to  us  from  which  we  mav  draw 
conclusions  as  to  the  future.  For  "the  inferior  world 
is  dependent  upon  the  superior.    The  heavenly  bod- 

11  Gesundheit  und  Krankheit  in  der  Anschauung  alter  Zeiten,  Leip- 
sic,  1901,  p.  80 


THE  PARACELSAN  VIEW  OF  NATURE.  39 

ies  exercise  a  certain  mysterious  action  and  influ- 
ence upon  the  lower  conditions  whereby  the  fluids 
[Sdfte]  of  the  body  are  modified,  augmented  or 
diminished,  according  to  the  position  and  character 
of  the  stars.  Daily  experience,  in  all  things  the 
surest  teacher,  shows  this  so  plainly  and  clearly  that 
no  further  proof  is  needed.  If  any  one  lacks  con- 
fidence in  this  let  him  but  observe  the  influence  of 
the  moon  and  he  will  be  convinced.  For  with  a 
crescent  moon  the  fluids  of  the  body  increase  also — 
the  blood,  the  brain — the  marrow — in  man  and  in 
animals.  The  fluids  of  our  bodies  are  therefore 
ruled  by  the  heavenly  bodies,  but  from  bad  fluids 
arise  diseases  and  from  diseases — death." 

Even  before  Paracelsus  there  were  symptoms 
of  a  tendency  to  discredit  the  mystical  notions  of  the 
influence  of  the  stars.  Thus  Giovanni  Pico  della 
Mirandola,  who  died  the  year  following  Paracelsus\s 
birth,  says: 

"The  stars  can  only  indicate  and  predict  what 
they  themselves  cause.  Their  real  and  natural  signs 
belong  to  the  material  world  and  are  subject  to  its 
laws.  They  are  either  the  causes  or  the  effects  of 
the  happenings  which  they  indicate  or  predict.  The 
heavenly  bodies  possess  no  occult  qualities  by  whose 
power  they  are  able  to  produce  secret  influences  on 
earth.  Not  in  the  heavens  but  in  himself  must  each 
read  the  foundations  of  his  destiny.  A  great  thinker 
such  as  Aristotle  is  indebted  for  his  capacities  and 
accomplishments  not  to  the  stars  under  which  he 


40  PARACELSUS. 

was  born,  but  to  his  own  genius  which  he  received 
from  God/' 

So  Paracelsus  says:  ''Adam  and  Eve  received 
their  bodies  at  the  creation  and  through  the  principle 
of  the  seed  up  to  the  passing  away  of  the  world. 
And  though  no  star  or  planet  had  existed  nor  yet 
were,  children  would  be  just  so  born,  complexioned 
and  natured  as  they  now  are — one  melancholic,  an- 
other choleric,  one  true,  another  untrue,  one  pious, 
another  wicked.  Such  qualities  are  in  the  entity  of 
their  natures  and  do  not  come  from  the  stars,  for 
they  have  no  part  in  the  body,  that  is,  they  give  no 
complexion,  no  colors,  no  form,  no  characteristic 
traits,  no  nature,  no  individuality."^" 

"The  course  of  Saturn  disturbs  no  man  in  his 
life,  neither  lengthens  nor  shortens  it.  For  if  Saturn 
had  never  been  in  the  heavens  nor  in  the  firmament, 
people  would  be  born  just  so,  and  though  no  moon 
had  been  created  still  would  people  have  just  such 
natures.  You  must  not  believe  that  because  Mars 
is  cruel,  therefore  Nero  was  his  child.  Although 
they  had  the  same  nature  neither  obtained  it  from 
the  other.  You  see  Helen  and  Venus  of  one  nature, 
and  though  Venus  had  never  existed  still  would 
Helen  have  been  a  strumpet,  and  although  Venus  is 
older  than  Helen  consider  that  before  Helen  there 
were  also  strumpets. 

''A  seed  that  is  thrown  into  the  earth  yields  its 
fruit  of  itself,  for  it  has  the  principle  of  the  seed 
[ens  seminis]  within  it,  but  if  the  sun  were  not,  it 

12  Op.  fol,  I,  5,  'Taramirum." 


THE  PARACELSAN  VIEW  OF  NATURE.  4I 

would  not  grow.  Think  not  that  the  sun  makes  it, 
nor  the  firmament  nor  such  things,  but  mark  that 
the  warmth  of  the  sun  sets  it  its  time.  .  .  .  A  child 
may  not  grow  without  its  digestion  [gestation]  for 
it  grows  in  the  digestion,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  mother, 
and  therefore  the  child  needs  no  stars  nor  planets,  its 
mother  is  its  planet  and  its  star.  The  seed  must  have 
digestion  and  that  takes  place  in  the  earth.  The  earth, 
however,  affords  no  digestion  without  the  sun,  but 
the  mother  is  a  digestion  without  any  stars ....  ''^^ 

''But  understand  also  the  virtue  of  the  stars.  The 
stars  have  their  nature  and  their  manifold  proper- 
ties, just  as  on  earth  men  have.  The  stars  have  also 
their  changes,  sometimes  better,  sometimes  worse, 
sweeter  or  sourer,  milder  or  bitterer.  When  they 
are  good  nothing  evil  comes  from  them,  but  when 
they  are  evil,  evil  comes  from  them.  Take  note  that 
they  surround  the  earth  as  the  shell  an  tgg :  the  air 
comes  through  the  shell  and  passes  first  through 
them  toward  the  center  of  the  world.  Therefore 
note  now  that  those  stars  which  are  poisonous — 
they  contaminate  the  air  with  their  poison.  There- 
fore when  these  poisons  come  to  any  place  such  dis- 
eases appear  there  as  have  the  properties  of  those 
stars.  It  may  not  poison  the  whole  earth  but  only 
that  part  where  its  influence  is  strongest.  And  so 
also  it  is  with  the  good  influences  of  the  stars. "^* 

This  is  an  illustration  of  a  very  characteristic 
habit  of  Paracelsus,  of  explaining  generally  accepted 
beliefs  of  his  time  by  some  plausibly  rational  theory. 

'^  Ibid.,  1,6.  ^^Ihid.,1,7. 


42  PARACELSUS. 

In  his  time  when  the  Ptolemaic  cosmology  prevailed, 
the  earth  was  the  center — about  which  sun,  moon 
and  planets  revolved,  and  the  atmosphere  was  com- 
monly supposed  to  extend  to  and  to  support  them  in 
their  places.  To  the  thought  of  our  time  strange 
and  fantastic — yet  to  his  own  time  there  was  nothing 
absurd  in  this  imaginative  hypothesis  to  account  for 
such  influences  upon  health  and  diseases  as  Para- 
celsus with  others  credited  to  the  heavenly  bodies. 

The  following  passage  is,  however,  less  consis- 
tent with  the  foregoing  quotations,  and  more  in  ac- 
cord with  the  philosophy  of  Agrippa.  Says  Para- 
celsus:^" 

'■Therefore  know  that  the  wise  man  can  rule  and 
master  the  stars,  and  not  the  stars  him.  The  stars 
are  subject  to  him  and  and  must  follow  him  and 
not  he  them.  A  brutish  man  is  ruled,  mastered, 
compelled  and  necessitated  by  the  stars,  so  that  he 
has  to  follow  them  like  the  thief  to  the  gallows,  the 
mtird'erer  to  the  wheel." 

The  study  of  all  nature  was  essential  to  the  phy- 
sician according  to  the  view  of  Paracelsus- — because 
only  through  a  complete  understanding  of  external 
nature  (the  macrocosm)  could  the  physician  com- 
pletely understand  the  influences  afifecting  man  (the 
microcosm).     To  quote i^*' 

"The  heaven  is  its  own  physician  as  is  a  dog  of 
its  wounds,  but  man  has  his  shortcomings  in  such 
things.     For  as  he  is  more  than  a  mortal  creature, 

15  Op.  fol,  I,  910,  "De  natura  rerum." 
.     !%/>.  fol,  I,  216,  "Paragranum." 


THE  PARACELSAN  VIEW  OF  NATURE.  43 

he  must  have  more  knowledge.  He  must  know  what 
is  in  the  heavens  and  what  in  the  earth,  what  in  the 
air,  and  what  in  the  water.  Why  is  this  so?  In 
order  that  he  may  know  who  he  is  and  from  what 
he  is.  If  this  knowledge  were  not  necessary  man 
would  not  be  sick.  But  that  man  may  know  that, 
no  matter  what  and  who  he  is,  he  must  recognize  in 
his  father  [the  macrocosm]  diseases  and  health, 
and  must  see  that  this  member  Mars  has  made,  this 
member,  Venus,  and  this,  Luna ;  this  is  from  the 
Chaos  [air]  ;  in  this  place  hast  thou  thy  flesh  and 
blood  from  the  element  water,  there  from  earth. 
These  diseases  of  men  and  of  their  health  exist  only 
for  this  that  man  may  know  the  beasts  of  the  forest 
and  the  field,  and  that  he  may  see  that  he  is  like  the 
beasts  and  not  better.  Therefore  must  man  observe 
himself  and  gain  experience  of  all  created  things 
that  he  may  know  himself.'' 

The  fourth  pillar  of  medicine,  virtue  {proprie- 
tas),  resolves  itself  in  the  hands  of  Paracelsus  into 
a  recognition  of  and  obedience  to  the  will  of  God 
and  to  his  direction  of  the  universe  throuo-h  the 
powers  of  nature  and  the  teachings  of  Christ.  Quite 
generally  the  subject  is  treated  with  direct  applica- 
tion to  the  mission  of  the  physician  as  the  agent  of 
God's  will  for  the  health  of  man  through  his  under- 
standing of  the  forces  of  nature,  and  to  the  duties 
of  the  medical  profession  toward  the  poor  and  the 
sick  and  their  obligation  to  prepare  themselves  for 
their  profession  by  studying  their  science  in  ''the 
Light  of  Nature." 


MEDICAL  THEORY. 

AS  the  main  interest  of  Paracelsus  lay  in  medicine, 
lY.  and  as  he  rejected  the  ancient  authorities  on 
the  theory  and  practice  of  medicine,  it  was  of  first 
importance  to  his  mission  that  he  should  formulate 
a  theory  of  medicine  that  should  harmonize  with 
his  philosophy  of  nature  and  the  results  of  his  ex- 
perience and  observation.  Naturally  also  his  med- 
ical theory  is  closely  related  to  his  natural  philos- 
ophy. 

The  history  of  medical  science  gives  ample  evi- 
dence of  a  great  need  of  radical  reform  both  in 
theory  and  practice  at  the  period  of  the  activity  of 
Paracelsus. 

The  accepted  body  of  medical  doctrines  as  au- 
thorized by  the  medical  faculties  and  taught  in  the 
universities  was  founded  upon  the  ancient  authori- 
ties of  Hippocrates  and  Galen  and  their  Arabian 
interpreters,  and  particularly  of  the  latter.  The 
Greek  physician  Galen  had  indeed  accomplished 
much  in  his  time  to  advance  the. practice  of  medicine, 
and  had  even  performed  dissections,  not  indeed  on 
the  human  subject,  but  upon  animal  bodies.  But  to 
the  physicians  of  the  time  of  Paracelsus  the  ancient 
texts  of  Galen  were  almost  unknown  in  their  purity. 


MEDICAL  THEORY.  45 

but  were  read  only  as  transmitted,  commentated  and 
interpolated  by  Arabian  interpreters,  Avicenna, 
Averrhoes,  Mesne  and  others.  The  Galenism  of  the 
sixteenth  century  was  a  corrupted  Galenism  over- 
laid with  Oriental  occultism  and  mysticism.  More- 
over, the  medieval  spirit  still  ruled  in  the  profession. 
The  teachings  of  the  Arabian-Greek  authorities  had 
been  for  centuries  and  were  still  held  as  infallible 
dogmas.  The  doctrines  of  medical  science  were  a 
finished  book,  just  as  the  authorities  of  the  Church 
were  final — they  might  be  commentated,  expounded, 
interpreted  and  taught,  but  not  contradicted  nor 
seriously  questioned.  No  experiments  were  encour- 
aged, no  doctrines  or  opinions  tolerated  that  might 
be  in  evident  contradiction  to  these  sacred  authori- 
ties. Though  new  diseases  had  arisen  to  puzzle  the 
profession,  no  new  unauthorized  measures  could  be 
attempted  to  meet  them.  Naturally  enough,  while 
such  a"  condition  prevailed  the  medical  profession 
was  bound  to  degenerate  into  a  self-satisfied  caste. 
Naturally  also  ignorance  and  incapacity,  fostered  by 
the  lifeless  teaching  of  the  conventional  dogmas, 
theories  and  the  stereotyped  system  of  symptoms 
and  remedies,  often  gave  rise  to  pretentiousness  and 
hypocrisy.  It  followed  also  that  in  the  Renaissance, 
when  men  were  thinking  many  new  thoughts,  there 
should  have  arisen  a  suspicion  as  to  the  sufficiency 
of  medical  theory  and  practice,  not  perhaps  within 
the  ranks  of  the  conventionally  trained  profession 
itself — though  here  and  there  a  voice  was  raised  in 
protest  against  some  phase  or  feature  of  medical 


46  PARACELSUS. 

practice  or  theory — but  more  particularly  among 
the  laymen  and  the  general  public. 

It  was  indeed  during  the  very  time  when  Para- 
celsus was  acquiring  his  medical  training,  that  Eras- 
mus in  his  Praise  of  Folly,  satirizing  the  follies  of 
the  time,  said  of  the  contemporary  medical  science, 
''And  indeed  the  whole  art  as  it  is  now  practised  is 
but  one  incorporated  compound  of  craft  and  impos- 
ture." And  Agrippa  von  Nettesheim,  the  elder  con- 
temporary in  Germany  of  Paracelsus,  had  also  writ- 
ten,^ ''The  greatest  reputation  is  attained  by  those 
physicians  who  are  recommended  by  splendid  cos- 
tumes, many  rings  and  jewels,  a  distant  fatherland, 
tedious  travels,  a  strange  religion,  especially  the 
Hindu  or  Mohammedan,  and  who  combine  with 
these  a  monstrous  shamelessness  in  the  praising  of 
their  medicines  and  cures.  They  observe  times  and 
hours  most  exactly,  dispense  their  medicines  always 
according  to  the  astrological  calendar,  and  hang  all 
kinds  of  amulets  on  the  patient.  Simple  and  native 
medicines  are  quite  neglected.  Costly  foreign  rem- 
edies are  preferred,  which  latter  are  mixed  in  such 
enormous  numbers  that  the  action  of  one  is  counter- 
acted by  that  of  another,  so  that  no  human  sagac- 
ity can  foresee  the  effects  which  will  arise  from  such 
an  abominable  mixture." 

Peter  Ramus,  the  distinguished  French  human- 
ist and  reform  professor  in  the  College  of  France — 
himself  a  great  admirer  of  the  work  and  skill  of 

1  Ba.2iS,Geschichtliche  Enfwickelung  des  arstlichen  Standes,  Berlin. 
1896,  p.  185. 


MEDICAL  THEORY.  47 

Paracelsus,  as  shown  in  an  essay  urging;  certain 
reformations  in  the  University  of  Paris  (in  1562) 
— emphasized  the  laziness  of  the  professors  of  medi- 
cine and  theology,  and  complained  that  the  analyz- 
ing of  herbs  and  simples  and  the  study  of  their 
effects  upon  the  body  were  totally  neglected."  The 
shortcomings  of  the  medical  profession  were  evi- 
dently not  unappreciated  by  many  able  contempo- 
rary critics. 

The  medical  theory  of  the  period  was  based,  as 
already  mentioned,  upon  the  doctrines  of  Hippoc- 
rates and  Galen.  With  these  Greek  physicians,  medi- 
cine had  been  indeed  a  living  science,  though  primi- 
tive. They  at  least  had  learned  by  observation  and 
experiment:  but  their  medieval  interpreters  no 
longer  experimented  and  their  observations  were 
only  such  as  might  enable  them  to  apply  the  accepted 
doctrines  and  formulas  of  the  ancient  authorities. 
The  teaching  of  medicine  in  the  universities  at  the 
time  of  Paracelsus  was  practically  confined  to  the 
reading  of  Avicenna,  Mesue,  Aveprhoes  and  other 
interpreters  of  the  Galenic  doctrine,  and  commen- 
taries and  exposition  of  their  meaning  by  the  lec- 
turer. Dissections  and  laboratory  methods  were 
lacking;  though  sometimes  at  rare  intervals,  when 
permitted  by  the  civil  and  clerical  authorities,  dem- 
onstrations in  anatomy — superficial  and  crude  in- 
deed—  were  made  in  the  presence  of  the  medical 
students  and  the  physicians  of  the  town.     The  first 

-  Cf.  Graves,  Peter  Ramus  and  the  Educational  Refonnation  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century,  Macmillan,  1912,  pp.  80,  82. 


48  PARACELSUS. 

important  publication  on  anatomy,  marking  the  be- 
ginnings of  the  development  of  modern  anatomical 
studies,  was  that  of  Vesalius  which  appeared  in 
print  two  years  after  the  death  of  Paracelsus. 

The  authoritative  theory  of  diseases  was  based 
upon  the  Galenic  doctrine  of  the  four  humors  or 
fluids  of  the  body,  phlegm,  blood,  the  yellow  and  the 
black  bile, — these  being  related  by  metaphysical 
analogy  to  the  four  elementary  qualities — cold,  dry, 
warm,  moist.  Any  disturbances  in  the  proper  pro- 
portions of  these  fluids  produced  illnesses  or  disease. 
The  nature  of  these  disturbances  was  indicated  by 
accepted  symptoms.  The  treatment  was  directed 
toward  restoring  the  supposed  disturbed  balance  of 
qualities  as  indicated  by  the  symptoms,  and  con- 
sisted generally  of  bleeding,  purging,  and  the  use  of 
decoctions  of  herbs,  generally  extremely  complex 
in  their  admixture.  But  through  Oriental  influences 
this  Galenic  theory,  fantastic  and  unscientific  as  it 
was,  had  become  complicated  with  astrology  and 
other  mysticisms,  while  the  superstitions  of  the  me- 
dieval Church,  and  the  heathen  superstitions  of  the 
northern  European  peoples  were  not  without  their 
influence  upon  local  medical  practice. 

Troels-Lund^  has  interestingly  described  the 
prevalent  beliefs  of  the  sixteenth  century  as  to  the 
causes  and  cures  of  disease.  They  may  be  briefly 
summarized  as  follows: 

First:  Disease  comes  from  God  bv  His  direct 
volition  as  warning  or  as  punishment.     The  logical 

3  op.  cit.,  pp.  41ff. 


MEDICAL  THEORY.  49 

conclusion  was  that  God  should  be  permitted  to 
effect  the  cure.  Prayers,  penances,  and  the  offices 
of  the  Church  were  thus  the  natural  instrumental- 
ities through  which  the  divine  mercy  might  be  in- 
voked to  relieve  the  suffering.  Manifestly  the  skill 
of  the  physician  had  here  little  place. 

Second :  Disease  comes  from  the  influence  of  the 
Devil  and  his  agents.  Here  again  prayers,  pen- 
ances, exorcisms  and  purification  by  the  offices  of 
the  Church  might  avail  (white  magic).  So  also, 
however,  might  magic  ceremonies  and  formulas, 
and  exorcisms  by  wise  women,  and  magicians,  who 
presumably  ow^ed  their  power  to  their  superior 
knowledge  of  the  occult  powers  of  nature,  or  per- 
chance even  to  unholy  alliances  with  the  powers  of 
evil  (black  magic).  Here  also  there  was  little  room 
for  the  skill  of  the  physician,  though  it  might  be  he 
could  assist — who  could  be  certain? 

Third :  Disease  comes  from  the  stars.  This  no- 
tion has  been  discussed  previously.  Here  evidently 
the  physican  might  help,  who  knew  the  secrets  of  the 
heavens,  and  who  gathered  and  prepared  his  reme- 
dies at  the  auspicious  time  and  could  administer 
them  when  the  planets  were  favorable. 

Fourth:  Disease  comes  from  the  disturbances 
in  the  fluids  or  humors  of  the  body.  This  was  the 
Galenic  doctrine  above  mentioned. 

A  fifth  general  idea  as  to  the  cause  of  disease 
mentioned  by  Troels-Lund,  may  have  been  but  an 
elaboration  of  the  fourth,  viz.,  that  disease  was 
owing  to  something  lacking  in  the  body  which  medi- 


50  PARACELSUS. 

cine  could  supply  to  restore  as  it  were  the  equilib- 
rium, and  with  this  idea  there  was  developed  a  body 
of  materia  medica  during  the  sixteenth  century 
which  presented  an  astonishing  catalog  of  often 
almost  incredible  and  repulsive  remedies. 

To  this  question  as  to  the  causes  of  disease,  Para- 
celsus, in  his  desire  to  replace  the  ancient  authori- 
ties by  something  more  in  accordance  with  his  own 
philosophy  of  nature,  applied  himself  with  char- 
acteristic originality,  and  with  some  intuitive  in- 
sight. 

He  catalogs  and  describes  five  "entities,"  or 
active  principles,  which  influence  the  health  of  man. 
These  principles  or  influences  are  the  ens  astrale, 
or  sidereal  influence;  the  ens  veiieni,  or  influence 
of  poisons;  the  ens  naturale,  or  influence  which 
exists  in  the  nature  of  the  individual,  the  micro- 
cosm; the  ens  spirituale,  influences  acting  not  di- 
rectly upon  the  body  but  through  the  spirit  (Geist)  ; 
the  ens  deale  —  the  will  of  God  acting  directly  to 
produce  illness  by  way  of  warning  or  punishment. 

With  respect  to  the  first  of  these,  the  influence 
of  the  stars  (the  ens  astrale)  we  have  already  seen 
that  he  recognizes  the  influence  of  the  stars  without 
admitting  their  control  of  the  destinies  of  man,  and 
we  have  had  an  illustration  of  his  curious  attempt 
to  explain  their  influence  by  the  hypothesis  of  vari-- 
ous  eflluvia  conveyed  from  the  stars  through  the 
atmosphere. 

His  treatment  of  the  second  influence,  the  ens 
veneni,  is  of  interest  as  illustrating  both  his  com- 


MEDICAL  THEORY.  5 1 

prehension  of  an  important  physiological  fact,  and 
his  fanciful  and  imaginative  elaboration  of  it  into 
theory.  'The  body  was  given  us  without  poison, 
and  there  is  no  poison  in  it ;  but  that  which  we  must 
give  the  body  for  its  food  contains  poison."*  He 
elaborates  this  idea  by  explaining  that  the  plant 
and  animal  food  which  we  eat  contain  both  useful 
and  useless  material,  wholesome  and  unwholesome, 
food  and  poison.  In  the  body  the  food  and  the  poi- 
son must  be  separated,  the  food  being  transformed 
into  flesh  and  blood  and  bone,  etc.,  the  poisons  elim- 
inated. This  separation,  he  considers,  is  effected 
by  the  ''Archaeus,"  a  directing  force  or  spirit.  The 
Archseus,  situated  in  the  stomach,  sorts  out  and 
separates  the  wholesome  from  the  unwholesome 
in  the  food.  So  long  as  the  Archgeus  performs  his 
functions  properly  our  food  is  wholesome  and  the 
body  thrives.  Should  from  any  cause  the  Archseus 
become  ill  or  incapacitated,  the  separation  is  in- 
complete and  we  suffer  from  the  poisons  being  im- 
perfectly eliminated.  The  Archseus  is,  then,  says 
Paracelsus,  an  alchemist,  for  his  functions  are  simi- 
lar to  those  of  the  chemist  in  his  laboratory.  Other 
animals  have  their  "Archsei,"  and  their  functions 
vary  in  degree  from  those  of  man. 

"The  peacock  eats  snakes,  lizards,  stellions ;  these 
are  animals  which  in  themselves  are  perfect  and 
healthy,  though  to  the  needs  of  other  animals  sheer 
poison,  but  not  to  the  peacock.  For  from  whatever 
causes  it  may  be,  his  alchemist  is  so  subtle  that  the 

4  Op.  fol,  I,  9,  'Taramirum." 


52  PARACELSUS. 

alchemist  of  no  other  animal  equals  him,  who  so 
cleverly  separates  the  poison  from  the  good,  in  that 
which  the  peacock  eats  without  injury. 

"Observe,  then,  that  every  animal  has  food 
adapted  to  it  and  which  has  been  ordained  for  him 
by  his  alchemist  who  separates  the  proper  materials. 
To  the  ostrich  there  is  given  an  alchemist  who  sep- 
arates iron,"  etc.^ 

In  everything  there  is  an  essence  and  a  poison; 
an  essence  is  that  which  preserves  man,  a  poison 
that  which  produces  illness. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  to  what  extent  Paracelsus  be- 
lieved that  this  presiding  Archseus  was  a  true  spirit 
having  an  individuality  or  personality  of  its  own, 
to  what  extent  a  term  to  typify  a  force  or  principle. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  the  Latin  text  of  his 
work  De  gradibus  (1526),  published  by  Huser  after 
the  manuscript  of  the  pupil  and  amanuensis  of 
Paracelsus,  Oporinus,  the  following  definition  ap- 
pears: "Archaeus  est  ista  vis  cjuae  produxit  res, 
id  est  dispensator  et  compositor  omnium  rerum." 
The  w^ord  vis^  or  "force,"  is  here  noteworthy, 
though  not  necessarily  a  demonstration  of  the  exact 
notion  possessed  by  Paracelsus  himself. 

To  the  philosophy  of  the  neo-Platonists  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  however,  the  notions  of  force  and 
principle  and  spirit  were  more  closely  connected, 
for  as  God  was  the  soul  of  the  universe,  and  as  man 
— the  microcosm — possesses  a  soul,  so  also  all  other 
parts  of  the  macrocosm  had  souls  or  spirits.     Or, 

^  Ibid.,  I,  10.    This  is  an  ancient  fable  that  the  ostrich  can  eat  iron. 


MEDICAL  THEORY.  53 

as  expressed  by  Agrippa  von  Nettesheim,'  "It  would 
be  absurd  if  the  heavens,  the  stars  and  the  elements, 
which  are  for  all  beings  the  sources  of  life  and  soul, 
should  themselves  lack  these — if  every  plant  and 
every  tree  had  part  in  a  nobler  destiny  than  the 
stars  and  the  elements  which  are  their  natural  be- 
getters." 

The  description  of  the  third  influence,  the  ens 
nahirale,  or  the  influences  dependent  upon  the  na- 
ture of  the  individual,  is  more  complicated.  For 
man,  the  microcosm,  was  the  epitome  of  the  macro- 
cosm, and  in  his  nature  were  to  be  found  in  a  sense 
the  counterparts  of  all  external  influences.  As  in 
the  external  universe  the  sun,  moon  and  planets 
have  their  predestined  and  determined  courses,  so 
the  mirocosm  has  its  sun,  moon  and  planets  with 
their  predestined  courses.  As  the  heavenly  bodies 
could  exert  some  influence  on  the  health  and  dis- 
eases of  men,  so  the  corresponding  planets  of  the 
human  organism  have  similar  influences.  Thus, 
as  the  sun  by  its  light  and  heat  influences  all  living 
things,  so  the  heart,  the  sun  of  the  body,  has  its 
determined  course  and  gives  light  and  warmth  to 
the  body.  To  the  moon  and  its  influences  corre- 
sponds the  brain  in  man;  similarly,  the  lungs  cor- 
respond to  Mercury,  the  liver  to  Jupiter,  the  kidneys 
to  Venus,  the  gall  to  Mars,  etc.  Thus  the  planets 
have  their  analogies  in  the  body,  and  each  has  its 
established  course  and  influence,  its  conjunctions  and 
oppositions.    These  courses  are,  according  to  Para- 

^  As  quoted  by  Cassirer,  op.  cit.,  I,  p.  207. 


54 


PARACELSUS. 


celsus,  foreordained  at  birth,  and  the  time  is  set  for . 
their  Hfe  and  activities,  as  an  hourglass  is  set  for 
a  determined  time.  'Tor  example,  a  child  is  born 
at  a  certain  hour,  and  is  to  live  according  to  his 
ens  naturale  for  ten  hours,  as  had  been  predestined 
at  its  creation.  Then  the  courses  of  its  bodily 
planets  will  be  completed  just  as  if  it  had  lived  a 
hundred  years.  And  the  hundred-year  man  has  no 
different  course  than  the  one-hour  child,  but  a  slower 
one.  Thus  are  we  to  understand  what  the  creation 
and  predestination  are  in  the  ens  naturale.  Observe, 
however,  that  the  other  entia  often  interrupt  the 
predestination."^ 

All  this  is  fanciful  and  fantastic  enough.  The 
one  fundamental  observation  underlying  the  elab- 
orate metaphysical  structure  seems  to  be  the  recog- 
nition of  the  varying  endowments  of  vital  energy 
with  which  different  individuals  are  provided  at 
birth,  and  of  the  fact  that  not  alone  upon  external 
influences  is  the  health  or  illness  of  individuals  de- 
pendent. 

The  fourth  influence,  the  ens  spirituale,  is  also 
treated  in  quite  a  fantastic  manner  as  judged  from 
our  present  point  of  view,  though  to  a  period  when 
witches  and  sorcerers  were  tortured  and  burned, 
there  was  probably  little  in  the  thought  of  Para- 
celsus which  might  not  be  plausible  enough  to  his 
contemporaries. 

The  ens  spirituale  comprises  those  influences 
which  affect  the  body  only  indirectly  by  direct  action 

~  Op.  foL,  I,  14,  "Paramirum." 


MEDICAL  THEORY.  55 

Upon  the  spirit   (Geist).     Paracelsus  distinguishes 
between  spirit  (Geist)  and  soul  (Seek). 

'Take  note  that  there  is  not  comprehended  in 
this  ens  spiritiiale  any  devil  nor  his  effects  nor  his 
assistance  [Ziilendiing],  for  the  devil  is  no  spirit 
[Geist]  :  an  angel  also  is  not  a  spirit.  That  is  a 
spirit  which  is  born  from  our  thoughts,  without 
matter,  in  the  living  body :  that  which  is  born  after 
our  death,  that  is  the  soul  [Seele]''^ 

The  spirit  may  suffer  from  diseases  like  the 
body,  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  when  the 
spirit  suft'ers  the  body  suffers  also. 

He  explains  how  these  spirits  may  be  created  by 
the  willof  man  when  he  thinks  of  another  person, 
in  waking  or  in  sleeping  hours — and  the  spirits  thus 
engendered  may  attack  the  spirits  of  the  person 
thus  selected,  and  do  injury  to  them  and  through 
them  to  their  possessor.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
spirit  thus  assailed  may  successfully  resist  and  pre- 
vail over  the  attacking  spirit,  in  which  case  the 
originator  himself  will  be  the  sufferer. 

In  the  discussion  of  this  topic  Paracelsus  mani- 
festly realizes  that  he  is  liable  to  come  into  danger- 
ous conflict  with  the  Church  doctrines,  if  misunder- 
stood, and  warns  his  readers  that  they  "lay  aside 
the  style  which  is  called  theological.  For  not  every- 
thing is  sacred  which  is  called  theological,  and  not 
everything  is  holy  which  theology  employs.  Also  all 
is  not  true  which  he  uses  who  does  not  understand 
theology  aright."^ 

^  Ibid.,  I,  17.  -^  Ibid. 


56  PARACELSUS. 

This  curious  attempt  to  explain  the  mechanism 
of  the  then  generally  credited  occult  influence  of 
one  person  upon  another  by  magic  or  charms  or 
witchcraft  or  the  evil  eye  seems  strangely  foreign 
to  our  modern  thought,  but  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  such  representative  thinkers  of  that  time  and 
of  later  times — as  Trithemius,  Pico  della  Miran- 
dola,  Agrippa,  Melanchthon,  Cardanus  and  Gior- 
dano Bruno,  were  all  believers  and  writers  or  lec- 
turers upon  magical  influences. 

In  the  ens  deale  Paracelsus  recognizes  the  in- 
fluence of  the  will  of  God  upon  the  health  of  men. 
But  instead  of  accepting  the  inference  that  through 
the  offices  of  the  Church  is  help  to  be  obtained,  he 
emphasizes  the  idea  that  God  has  created  the  system 
of  nature  and  that  He  prefers  to  work  through  na- 
ture rather  than  by  direct  interference.  The  true 
physician,  therefore,  is  he  who  understands  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  and  is  through  that  knowledge 
the  agent  through  whom  God  acts.  This  point  of 
view  is  a  dominating  thought  with  Paracelsus  and 
is  brought  forward  continually  in  many  of  his  works. 
As  God  may  send  illness  so  He  sends  the  physician 
at  the  proper  time  when  the  period  of  the  punish- 
ment is  completed,  for  naturally  only  then  may  the 
cure  be  effected. 

"When  Pie  performs  a  miracle.  He  performs  it 
humanly  and  through  mankind;  if  He  effects  won- 
derful cures,  He  does  that  through  men,  and  there- 
fore the  physician. 

10  Ihid.,  I,  21c. 


JJIO 


MEDICAL  THEORY.  57 

He  admits  that  there  may  be  two  kinds  of  phy- 
sicians, those  that  heal  through  the  faith,  and  those 
who  heal  through  their  skill  in  medicine.  Not  all 
have  sufficiently  strong  faith,  but  the  end  of  the 
period  of  punishment  having  arrived,  the  physician 
may  cure  through  the  art  of  medicine.  Curing  by 
the  power  of  the  Christian  faith,  he  explains,  more- 
over cannot  apply  to  the  heathen — Turks,  Sara- 
cens, Jews,  etc.,  but  asserts  that  he  teaches  the  foun- 
dations of  medicine  not  only  for  Christians  but  for 
all  others  as  well. 

''The  physician  is  the  servant  of  nature,  and 
God  is  the  master  of  nature.'"' 

''But  that  you  may  know  what  the  reasons  are 
that  God  has  created  medicine  and  the  physician 
because  He  is  the  physician,  and  yet  works  through 
the  physician  and  does  not  Himself  act  without  a 
physician,  understand  this  explanation,  that  such  is 
His  mystery  that  He  does  not  will  that  the  sick 
shall  know  that  God  is  the  physician,  but  that  the 
art  may  have  a  procedure  and  a  practice,  and  that 
man  shall  not  perceive  His  help  in  miracles  alone, 
that  is,  in  God  Himself,  but  also  in  His  creatures 
that  they  may  help  through  the  artist  in  medicine, 
and  that  according  to  His  predestination  in  its 
j5roper  time.""^^ 

"So  know  then  all,  that  we  human  beings  are 
born  naked  and  bare,  and  bring  with  us  neither 
knowledge  nor  wisdom,  but  await  the  grace  of  God 
whatever  He  may  send  us.    And  He  gives  us  noth- 

11  Ihid.,  I,  22.  12  jijid^^  i^  22f. 


58  PARACELSUS. 

ing  as  a  free  gift  but  life.  Whether  we  be  well  or 
sick,  that  He  commands  through  nature;  teaching 
us  to  speak,  that  He  ordains  through  our  parents; 
and  so  on,  as  we  grow  up,  we  must  learn  all  things 
with  labor  and  difficulty,  for  we  possess  not  the 
least  knowledge.  As,  then,  we  must  learn,  there 
must  be  something  which  is  not  human  that  teaches 
us.  For  man  at  first  can  do  nothing.  If  we  then 
wish  to  learn,  our  first  foundation  is  in  God,  that 
we  acknowledge  Him  as  our  God  who  teaches  us 
and  sends  us  what  is  needful.  And  if  we  consider 
all  things  well  we  find  that  all  things  take  place 
through  an  instrumentality  which  God  has  provided 
at  the  Creation.  Thus  God  the  Father,  when  He 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  created  them  to 
be  an  instrumentality  through  which  that  should 
come  to  us  over  which  our  bodies  should  rule.  Thus 
is  man  the  master  of  medicine,  of  the  fields,  the 
meadows  and  the  vineyards. "^'^ 

This  formal  cataloging  and  characterization  o^ 
the  five  entia  which  influence  the  health  of  man,  by 
no  means  adequately  present  the  whole  theory  of 
disease  entertained  by  Paracelsus.  He  also  char- 
acterizes disease  itself  as  an  organism.  Troels- 
Lund  well  summarizes  this  theory  as  follows:  'Tt 
is  not,  as  the  Arabians  accepted,  something  on4y 
negative  in  relation  to  positive  health.  It  is  itself 
something  positive.  It  is  a  form  of  life  of  its  own, 
a  parasite  organism,  a  microcosm.  Man  is  in  illness 
of  two  natures,  has  at  the  same  time  two  bodies  in 

^^  Ibid.,  I,  113,  "Liber  de  origine  morborum  invisibilium." 


MEDICAL  THEORY.      .  59 

one  and  the  same.  To  understand  this  rightly  we 
must  make  it  clear  what  that  is  we  call  life.  Life 
is  always  an  intimate  union  of  three  constituents* 
Salt,  Sulphur,  Mercury.  So  long  as  life  lasts  they 
form  an  intimate  union  and  are  not  noticed.  But 
if  they  begin  to  separate  and  to  become  separately 
noticeable  in  pains  and  burnings,  this  is  disease  and 
it  ma}^  lead  to  complete  separation :  to  death.  Life 
is  something  invisible  while  its  elements  are  kept 
together.  If  life  ceases  they  separate  and  become 
visible.  You  do  not  understand  this?  Try  it.  A 
tree  lives.  Cut  it  into  firewood  and  it  dies.  When 
you  now  burn  it,  that  which  burns  is  Sulphur,  that 
which  vaporizes  is  Mercury,  and  that  which  is  ashes 
is  Salt.  There  is  nothing  more  in  it.  All  these 
three,  the  combustible,  the  volatile,  the  insoluble, 
are  found  united  in  everything  living  and  are  sep- 
arated only  when  it  dies.  These  three  it  is  which 
we  characterize  bv  the  names  of  Sulphur,  Mercury, 
Salt."^* 

"Disease  is  a  conflict  between  two  invisible  forms 
of  life— disease  and  health,  which  are  both  harbored 
in  the  same  organism.  The  conflict  is  carried  on 
everywhere  in  the  body;  is  felt  as  heat,  cold,  dis- 
comfort, pain  in  all  regions.  The  fever,  the  pain, 
are  not  the  disease  but  only  expressions  of  the  force, 
the  form,  under  which  the  nature  of  the  organism, 
the  inner  alchemist,  or  archseus,  or  whatever  you 
choose  to  call  the  living  force  within  you,  seeks  to 
put  to  flight  the  disease.     The  main  battle  consists 

14  op.  cit.,  pp.  156f. 


\ 


6o  PARACELSUS. 

in  the  crisis.  If  the  'archseus'  wins,  the  disease  must 
dissolve — give  way,  and  be  exerted  as  perspiration, 
excreta,  respiration.  If  the  disease  conquers,  the 
organism  is  dissolved  in  death. "^^ 

''Disease  itself  he  viewed  as  a  half  spiritual,  half 
corporeal  living  organism,  as  a  microcosm  within 
the  microcosm,  as  a  kind  of  parasite — with  its  own 
life-phenomena  and  life-processes  within  the  human 
organism;  its  healing  takes  place  when  nature  or 
medical  art  succeeds  in  developing  so  forceful  a 
vital  activity  that  the  parasite  is  suffocated,  that  is, 
the  disease  is  overcome."^^ 

Another  and  more  modern  phase  of  thought 
which  is  much  emphasized  by  Paracelsus  is  the  cura- 
tive power  which  lies  in  nature  herself,  independent 
of  all  medical  assistance. 

'That  you  may  understand  what  it  is  that  heals 
wounds,  for  without  that  knowledge  you  may  not 
readily  recognize  the  remedy,  you  must  know  that 
the  nature  of  the  flesh,  of  the  body,  the  veins,  the 
bones,  has  in  it  an  innate  force  [mumia^'^]  which 
heals  wounds,  thrusts,  and  such  like  things.  That 
is  to  say,  the  force  lying  in  the  bone  heals  the 
fracture,  the  force  naturally  contained  in  the  flesh 
heals  the  flesh.  So  with  every  member,  it  must 
be  understood,  each  has  its  healing  in  itself  and 

15  Ibid.,  p.  159. 

16  R.  J.   Hartmann,  Theophrast  von  Hohenheim,  Stuttgart,   1904, 

1'^  Mumia,  usually  meaning  mummy  or  the  dead  body,  Paracelsus 
uses  also  in  a  somewhat  mystical  sense — as  an  attractive  force  which 
he  compares  to  the  influence  of  the  magnet  on  iron.  Cf.  Op.  fol,  II,  313. 


MEDICAL  THEORY.  6l 

thus  nature  has  in  every  member  that  which  heals 
the  wounded  part.  Therefore  the  surgeon  should 
know  that  it  is  not  he  that  heals,  but  the  force 
in  the  body.  If  the  physician  thinks  it  is  he  that 
heals  he  deceives  himself  and  does  not  understand 
his  art.  But  that  you  may  know  for  what  purpose 
you,  the  surgeon,  exist,  learn  that  it  is  to  provide  a 
shield  and  protection  to  nature  in  the  injured  part 
against  enemies,  so  that  these  external  foes  may  not 
retard,  poison,  nor  spoil  the  force  of  nature,  but 
that  it  may  remain  in  its  vital  power  and  influence 
by  the  maintenance  of  such  protection.  Therefore 
he  who  can  protect  and  take  good  care  of  wounds 
is  a  good  surgeon.''^^ 

'Tn  nature's  battle  against  disease  the  physician 
is  but  the  helper,  who  furnishes  nature  with  weap- 
ons, the  apothecary  is  but  the  smith  who  forges 
them.  The  business  of  the  physician  is  therefore 
to  give  to  nature  what  she  needs  for  her  battle.  .  .  . 
Nature  is  the  physician."^'^ 

These  medical  theories  of  Paracelsus  were  ex- 
tremely heretical  in  the  eyes  of  the  medical  pro- 
fession of  the  time.  It  was  not  possible  for  him  to 
have  publicly  maintained  his  theories  without  ex- 
citing the  opposition  of  the  medical  faculties  and 
practitioners.  Least  of  all  was  that  possible  in  the 
universities  which  were  the  very  strongholds  of 
conservatism. 

The  practice  of  his  profession  differed  as  de- 

1^  Chir.  Biicher,  etc.,  p.  2,  "Grosse  Wundartzney." 

'^^  Ibid.,  p.  207,  "Ursprung  und  Herkommen  der  Frantzosen." 


62  PARACELSUS. 

cidedly  as  did  his  theories  from  the  conventional 
methods  of  diagnosis  and  treatment.  Having  bro- 
ken with  the  teachings  of  the  ancient  authorities, 
the  young  physician  had  not  hesitated  to  learn  from 
all  sources  which  were  open  to  him  in  his  travels 
in  his  own  and  in  foreign  lands  and  his  sojourning 
among  all  classes  of  people,  the  remedies  and  treat- 
ments used  by  all  kinds  of  healers  and  the  homely 
remedies  in  use  among  the  common  people.  His 
chemical  knowledge  and  his  chemical  theories  of  the 
nature  of  vegetable  or  mineral  substances  in  their 
relation  to  the  nature  of  man  doubtless  suggested 
new  ideas,  and  these  he  tested  by  observation  and 
experience.  To  what  extent  these  new  methods 
were  original  with  him,  and  to  what  extent  accumu- 
lated during  his  wanderings  in  foreign  lands  or 
among  the  villages  of  Germany  or  Switzerland,  it 
is  not  possible  to  state.  Certain  it  is  that  many  of 
the  remedies  and  treatments  he  used  and  taught 
were  new  to  the  medical  literature  of  his  time.  The 
complex  syrups  and  decoctions  of  rare  and  costly 
herbs  he  rejected,  and  taught  instead  that  the  true 
aim  of  chemist  and  physician  was  to  separate  from 
medicinal  raw  materials  their  effective  principles, 
spirits,  or  arcana,  by  the  application  of  chemical 
processes.  In  this  line  of  work  he  set  the  example 
of  using,  instead  of  the  complicated  and  irrational 
mixtures  of  the  medieval  pharmacopoeia,  simpler  ex- 
tracts and  purer  medicinal  preparations,  both  min- 
eral and  vegetable. 


DEFIANCE  TO  MEDICAL  FACULTY  AND 

PROFESSION. 

UPON  entrance  into  his  office  of  university  lec- 
turer upon  medicine  at  the  University  of 
Basel,  Paracelsus  made  no  secret  of  his  wide  diver- 
gence from  the  accepted  doctrines  and  practice  of 
the  established  school.  On  the  contrary,  he  promptly 
declared  war  upon  the  ancient  authorities  and  upon 
^the  prevalent  theories  and  practice  of  medicine. 

Naturally  also  the  faculties  and  profession  vv^ere 
indignant  and  opposition  and  antagonism  soon  de- 
veloped. After  a  few  weeks  it  appears  that  his  lec- 
tures were  interfered  with  and  interrupted.  The 
medical  faculty  invoked  a  statute,  not  consistently 
observed  previously  however,  that  any  newly  ar- 
rived physician  should,  before  being  admitted  to 
practice,  within  two  months  receive  the  approba- 
tion of  the  medical  faculty.  They  also  questioned 
his  title  of  Doctor  of  Medicine  and  demanded  that 
he  be  required  to  appear  and  defend  his  right  to 
the  title.  To  these  attacks  Paracelsus  replied  by  an 
appeal  to  the  city  authorities  by  whom  he  had  been 
appointed,  that  they  maintain  their  authority  by 
supporting  his  position  under  the  conditions  by 
which  he  held  his  position.     He  also  requested  that 


64  PARACELSUS. 

they  use  their  authority  to  put  an  end  to  the  persecu- 
tions by  his  opponents.  The  City  Council  seems  to 
have  sustained  his  contentions,  and  in  the  June  fol- 
lowing (1527)  he  had  printed  and  posted  the  formal 
Latin  announcement  of  his  courses  in  medicine.  In 
this  program  he  stated  plainly  that  he  should  not 
teach  the  ancient  books,  but  should  teach  the  art  of 
medicine  according  to  his  knowledge  of  nature,  and 
his  long  and  tried  experience.  He  should  teach  from 
his  own  writings.  It  was  not  smooth  talking  nor  the 
knowledge  of  many  languages  that  made  the  physi- 
cian, nor  the  reading  of  many  books,  but  the  knowl- 
edge of  things  and  of  their  hidden  powers.  It  was 
the  business  of  the  physician  to  know  the  varieties 
of  diseases,  their  causes  and  symptoms  and  to  em- 
ploy the  right  remedies  with  insight  and  with  in- 
dustry. Those  who  were  willing  to  be  led  by  him 
into  these  new  paths  should  come  to  Basel.  "He 
only  may  judge  who  has  heard  Theophrastus."^ 

These  and  similar  statements  in  his  program 
were  not  calculated  to  make  his  Galenic  antagonists 
m.ore  friendly,  but  these  were  not  his  only  offenses. 
Contrary  to  all  academic  observance  and  tradition, 
Paracelsus  lectured  in  the  common  German  tongue.^ 
Though  Luther  was  then  preaching  in  German,  and 
though  others  had  preached  even  in  Basel  in  the  ver- 
nacular, and  his  colleague  and  supporter  CEcolam- 
padius  had  introduced  the  singing  of  German  in- 
stead of  Latin  hymns  into  his  church  service,  never 

^  Cf.  R.  J,  Hartmann,  Theophrast  von  Hohenheim,  pp.  50f. 
2  Ibid.,  pp.  43f . 


DEFIANCE  TO   FACULTY  AND   PROFESSION.         65 

yet  had  a  university  teacher  ventured  to  lecture  in 
any  other  than  the  customary  Latin  language.  This 
was  another  scandal  and  an  insult  not  to  be  for- 
given. 

An  early  termination  of  his  academic  career 
was  inevitable,  and  was,  indeed,  not  long  delayed. 
Opposition  to  his  teachings  and  to  his  tenure  of  the 
professorship  became  more  intense.  It  appears  that 
his  lectures  were  largely  attended  not  only  by  quali- 
fied medical  students  but  by  many  others  less  for- 
mally schooled,  to  whom  his  lectures  in  the  common 
-language  opened  the  door.  It  is  also  doubtless  true 
that  Paracelsus,  realizing  that  among  the  conven- 
tionally trained  medical  students  he  should  meet 
with  miore  hostility  than  appreciation,  counted  upon 
reaching  by  this  means,  a  larger  and  more  sympa- 
thetic constituency. 

Constantly  irritated  by  the  evidences  of  hostility 
and  contempt  which  the  medical  faculty  and  their 
sympathizers  among  students  and  citizens  exhibited, 
Paracelsus  evidently  retaliated  in  his  lectures  by 
bitter  retorts  and  expressions  of  defiance  and  con- 
tempt for  the  doctrines,  dogmas  and  practice  of  his 
adversaries.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  emphasize 
his  breach  with  traditional  authorities  by  throwing 
into  the  students'  bonfire  on  St.  John's  Day  celebra- 
tion, that  most  revered  authority  of  the  medical 
teaching  of  that  time,  the  Canon  of  Avicenna. 

This  was  flagrant  defiance  and  open  insult  to  the 
most  sacred  traditions  of  the  established  school.  To 
the  medical  world  it  was  much  like  the  l^urning  of 


66  PARACELSUS. 

the  papal  bull  by  Martin  Luther  to  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic world  of  that  day.  We  may  perhaps  better  rea- 
lize the  significance  of  the  act  if  we  recall  that  a 
generation  later  (1559),  in  England,  a  Dr.  Gaynes 
was  cited  before  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Sur- 
geons for  impugning  the  infallibility  of  Galen,  and 
only  upon  acknowledgment  of  error  and  humble  re- 
cantation signed  with  his  own  hand  was  he  re- 
admitted to  standing.^ 

One  episode  of  the  petty  persecutions  of  his  an- 
tagonists evidently  excited  the  irritable  physician 
and  wounded  his  pride  in  the  highest  degree,  as 
later  allusions  in  his  own  writings  evidence  suffi- 
ciently. There  appeared  one  Sunday,  posted  at  the 
church  doors  or  other  public  places,  copies  of  Latin 
verses  addressed  to  "Theophrastus  or  better  Caco- 
phrastus,"  purporting  to  come  from  the  shade  of 
Galen  in  the  low^er  regions — ex  inferis — attacking 
and  ridiculing  Theophrastus  and  his  teachings. 

This  anonymous  and  public  attack  enraged  the 
already  irritated  and  abused  physician  beyond  en- 
durance. 

He  addressed  a  strong  appeal  to  the  Council  of 
the  City,  complaining  of  his  treatment  and  demand- 
ing that  they  take  measures  to  seek  out  and  appro- 
priately punish  the  culprits,  whom  he  believed  to 
be  among  his  hearers,  attending  his  lectures  for 
the  purpose  of  abusing  him.  If  the  authorities  can- 
not satisfy  his  petition,  and  should  such  attacks  be 
repeated,  he  must  not  be  blamed  for  no  longer  en- 

3  Cf.  Chambers'  Encyclopedia,  1st  ed.,  art.  "Galenus." 


DEFIANCE  TO   FACULTY  AND  PROFESSION.         6? 


PARACELSUS   WITH   A   BOON    COMPANION. 

Painted  by  an  unknown  artist,  about  half  a  century  after  Paracelsus's 
death,  when  the  struggle  between  enemies  and  adherents  of  Para- 
celsus was  at  its  height.  The  intention  to  stigmatize  Paracelsus 
as  a  charlatan  is  plain.  Original  in  the  Imperial  Gallery  at  Vienna. 


68  PARACELSUS. 

during  them,  or  if  he  should  in  anger  take  unwar- 
ranted action. 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  Council  took  any  de- 
cisive action  upon  this  request,  and  the  episode 
served  to  intensify  the  animosity  entertained  by 
Paracelsus  toward  the  university  faculties  and  pro- 
fession, and  evidently  directly  stimulated  some  of 
the  most  violent  attacks  to  be  found  in  his  writings. 

While  still  irritated  and  rankling  under  the  sense 
of  abuse  and  injustice,  there  occurred  an  incident 
which  brought  the  academic  career  of  Paracelsus 
and  his  residence  in  Basel  to  a  sudden  termination. 

A  prominent  and  wealthy  citizen  of  Basel,  Canon 
Lichtenfels,  Vv^as  suffering  from  a  painful  and  ob- 
stinate illness,  and  failing  to  receive  relief  at  the 
hands  of  his  physicians  had  offered  a  hundred  gul- 
dens for  any  cure.  Eventually  Paracelsus  was  called 
in.  Through  his  ministration  relief  being  quickly 
obtained,  the  physician  claimed  the  promised  re- 
ward. The  Canon,  however,  having  recovered  his 
health  and  mental  equilibrium,  declined  to  pay  the 
large  sum  offered,  sending  him  six  guldens  and  a 
letter  of  thanks  and  appreciation. 

Paracelsus  thereupon  brought  suit  for  the 
amount  promised.  The  court,  however,  decided 
against  him.  In  his  irritation  he  is  said  to  have 
denounced  the  action  of  the  judges  in  such  terms 
as  to  make  himself  liable  to  severe  punishment. 
Warned  of  the  danger  by  friends,  he  left  Basel  over 
night — never  to  return  to  that  city  which  he  had 
entered  with  such  high  hopes  and  enthusiasm,  and 


DEFIANCE  TO  FACULTY  AND  PROFESSION.         69 

which  he  left  in  disappointment  and  bitterness  of 
spirit. 

Paracelsus  had  begun  his  work  in  Basel  in  the 
fall  of  1526  and  his  sudden  departure  took  place 
probably  in  February,  1528,  a  brief  career  as  uni- 
versity teacher  but  for  Paracelsus  a  momentous  one. 

The  indignation  he  felt  toward  his  adversaries 
finds  expression  in  its  most  violent  form  in  the 
Paragranum  and  particularly  in  the  Introduction 
to  that  work.  The  work  itself  is  a  brief  formulation 
of  his  theory  of  the  foimdations  of  medical  science. 
The  sense  of  injury,  and  the  bitterness  of  his  disil- 
lusionment at  the  disastrous  finish  of  his  academic 
career  finds  vent  in  a  caustic  and  vigorous  attack 
upon  the  orthodox  profession — sometimes  reaching 
a  rude  eloquence,  sometimes  breaking  out  into  boast- 
ful predictions  or  into  coarse  abuse.  That  this  work 
was  not  printed  during  his  life  enabled  it  perhaps  to 
preserve  a  characteristic  flavor  which  it  might  have, 
to  some  extent,  lost  if  he  had  himself  published  it, 
as  in  certain  other  cases  we  know  that  he  carefully 
revised  the  first  drafts  of  communications  which  he 
had  written  under  the  stress  of  strong  feeling.  The 
following  quotation  will  serve  to  convey  some  idea 
of  its  style  and  content: 

"That  they  are  angry  at  me  because  I  write 
otherwise  than  is  contained  in  their  authors,  restilts 
not  from  mine  but  from  their  ignorance,  for  I,  as 
my  writings  prove,  am  not  outside  of  but  well 
grounded  in  the  foundation  of  medicine  and  in  the 
proper  May-time  the  evidence  will  come  forth.  That 


70 


PARACELSUS. 


they  grumble  at  such  timely  writings  does  not  result 
from  slight  causes:  —  for  no  one  cries  out  unless 
hurt,  no  one  is  hurt  unless  sensitive,  no  one  is  sensi- 
tive unless  transitory  and  not  permanent.  These 
men  cry  out  because  their  art  is  fragile  and  perish- 
able. Now,  nothing  cries  out  unless  it  be  perishable, 
and  therefore  they  are  perishable  and  therefore  thev 
cry  out  against  me.  The  art  of  medicine  does  not 
cry  out  against  me,  for  it  is  imperishable  and  so 
established  upon  immortal  foundations  that  heaven 
and  earth  shall  pass  away  before  the  art  of  medicine 
shall  perish.  If,  then,  the  art  of  medicine  leaves  me 
at  peace,  why  should  I  let  myself  be  disturbed  by 
the  crying  of  these  perishable  physicians.  They  only 
cry  because  I  defeat  and  wound  them: — that  is  a 
sign  that  they  lie  sick  in  the  arts  of  medicine: — 
their  disease  is  their  battle  against  me,  which  thev 
do  not  like  to  have  discovered  and  made  manifest."^ 

''Their  highest  ones  are  opposed  to  me  because 
I  do  not  come  from  their  schools  nor  write  accord- 
ing to  them.  Should  I  write  thus,  I  could  not  escape 
the  blame  of  falsehood,  for  the  writings  of  the  an- 
cients prove  themselves  false.  Who,  then,  can  be 
born  from  them  without  falseness .... 

''Now  if  I  am  to  present  my  case  in  opposition  to 
these,  I  must  claim  for  myself  that  upon  which  the 
art  of  medicine  rests,  in  order  that  it  may  be  gen- 
erally recognized  whether  I  am  entitled  to  speak  or 
not.  And  I  place  the  foundation  upon  which  I  stand 
and  from  which  I  write,  upon  four  pillars:  upon 

4  op.  fol,  I,  198.  "Paragranum." 


DEFIANCE  TO   FACULTY  AND  PROFESSION.         JI 

Philosophy,  upon  Astronomy,  upon  Alchemy,  upon 
Virtue.  Upon  these  four  will  I  stand  and  await 
any  antagonists,  and  see  whether  from  outside  of 
these  four,  any  physician  will  stand  against  me. 
Despisers  are  they  of  philosophy,  despisers  of  as- 
tronomy, despisers  of  alchemy,  despisers  of  virtue — 
how,  then,  can  they  remain  undespised  by  the  sick 
when  they  despise  that  which  gives  to  the  sick  the 
art  of  medicine,  for  with  what  measure  they  mete 
it  will  be  measured  to  them  again  and  their  works 
bring  them  to  shame.  Christ  was  the  foundation 
of  blessedness,  and  for  that  he  was  despised,  but  the 
real  contempt  fell  upon  his  contemners  so  that  nei- 
ther they  nor  Jerusalem  survived .  .  .  And  take  notice, 
either  you  too  must  accept  and  recognize  these  four 
pillars,  or  it  will  become  manifest  to  the  peasants 
in  the  villages  that  your  art  of  medicine  is  only  for 
deceiving  princes  and  lords,  cities  and  countries,  and 
that  your  art  possesses  neither  knowledge  nor  truth, 
and  the  chastisement  which  you  are  receiving  rightly 
comes  to  you,  ye  fools  and  hypocrites,  that  is  to  say, 
ye  so-called  physicians.  As  I  claim  these  four  pil- 
lars for  myself,  so  must  you  accept  them  and  must 
follow  after  me — not  I  after  you — Ye  after  me, 
Avicenna,  Galen,  PJiasis,  Montagnana,  Mesne,  etc. 
After  me  and  not  I  after  you — Ye  of  Paris,  ye  of 
Montpellier,  ye  of  Swabia,  ye  of  Meissen,  ye  of 
Cologne,  ye  of  Vienna,  and  those  who  are  on  the 
Danube  and  the  Rhine,  ye  islands  of  the  sea, — thou 
Italia,  thou  Dalmatia,  thou  Athens,  thou  Greece, 
thou  Arabia,  thou  Israelita,  after  me  and  not  I  after 


72 


PARACELSUS. 


^JJ0^'A 


WILHELM  VON  BOMBAST,  FATHER  OF  PARACELSUS. 
Oil-painting,  original  in  Salzburg.     Artist  unknown. 


DEFIANCE  TO   FACULTY  AND  PROFESSION. 


73 


^'  ":^^^*» 


-  1 


r 


PARACELSUS. 

After  a  life-size  oil-painting  in  the  State  Gallery  at  Schleissheim  near 
Munich.  Artist  and  date  uncertain.  Has  been  attributed  to 
Hans  Baldung  (ca.  1470-1552). 


74  PARACELSUS. 

you, — there  will  none  of  you  remain  in  the  furthest 
corner  on  whom  the  dogs  will  not.  .  .  .  :  I  shall  be 
monarch  and  mine  will  be  the  monarchy."""^ 

"This  is  certain,  that  the  restoring  to  health  is 
what  makes  a  physician,  —  their  work  it  is  that 
makes  the  Master  and  the  Doctor, — not  the  Em- 
peror, not  the  Pope,  not  the  Faculty,  not  the  privi- 
legia,  nor  any  university,  for  from  them  is  hidden 
that  which  makes  the  physician.  Therefore  they 
depend  only  upon  outward  appearances  that  they 
may  be  somewhat  seen.  There  has  never  any  phy- 
sician been  born  from  the  universities  nor  has  any 
one  been  able  there  to  learn  with  knowledge  of  the 
truth  the  cause  of  the  least  malady."^ 

''Ye  are  of  the  serpent  kind  and  hence  I  must 
expect  only  poison  from  you.  With  what  scorn 
have  you  placarded  me  as  the  Luther  of  Physicians, 
with  the  explanation  that  I  am  an  arch-heretic.  I 
am  Theophrastus  and  greater  than  those  to  whom 
you  liken  me.  I  am  Theophrastus  and  am  more- 
over Monarch  of  Physicians,  and  can  prove  that 
which  you  cannot  prove.  I  will  let  Luther  answer 
for  his  own  affairs  and  I  will  take  care  of  mine  and 
will  surpass  every  one  who  attacks  me, — the  Arcana 
will  help  me  to  that.  Who  are  enemies  of  Luther^ 
The  same  crowd  hates  me  also,  and  what  you,  for 
your  part,  wish  for  him  so  you  wish  for  me,  that  is, 
to  the  fire. 

"The  stars  did  not  make  me  a  physician — God 
made  me ;  it  is  not  for  the  stars  to  make  physicians, 

^Ibid.,  I,  199.  ^Ibid.,  I,  201c. 


DEFIANCE  TO   FACULTY  AND  PROFESSION.         y'=^ 

that  is  a  work  of  God,  not  of  the  stars.  I  may 
well  rejoice  that  rascals  are  my  enemies — for  the 
truth  has  no  enemies  but  liars ....  I  need  lay  on  no 
armor  against  you  —  no  corselet,  for  you  are  not 
so  learned  nor  experienced  that  you  can  disprove 
my  least  letter.  Could  I  protect  my  bald  head  from 
the  flies  as  easily  as  I  can  my  monarchy,  and  were 
Milan  as  safe  from  its  enemies  as  I  from  you,  neither 
Swiss  nor  foot-soldiers  could  gain  entrance."'^ 

The  work  Paragranum  as  well  as  the  Preface 
from  which  the  above  extracts  are  taken  contains 
many  similar  attacks  upon  his  antagonists,  some  of 
them  indeed  couched  in  language  which  will  not 
bear  translation.  Even  admitting  what  he  has  him- 
self claimed  that  in  such  assaults  he  is  but  replying 
in  kind  to  similar  attacks  upon  him,  it  is  evident 
that  these  outbursts  of  indignation,  however  justified 
they  may  have  been,  nevertheless  were  not  calcu- 
lated to  appeal  to  thoughtful  men  whether  friendly 
to  his  campaign  or  otherwise.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  should  be  said  that  these  utterances  as  found  in 
the  Paragranum  represent  an  extreme  of  bitterness 
and  lack  of  restraint  which  is  not  characteristic  of 
the  great  mass  of  the  work  of  Paracelsus.  At  a 
later  period  of  his  life,  Hohenheim  thus  refers  to 
his  own  blunt  style  of  writing:  ''My  style  pleases 
me  very  well.  In  order  to  ofTer  a  defense  for  mv 
strange  fashion  and  how  it  is  to  be  understood,  know 
this, — by  nature  I  am  not  woven  fine — it  is  not  the 
fashion  of  my  land  that  one  attains  anything  by 

7  Ibid.,  I,  202. 


^6  PARACELSUS. 

spinning-  silk.  Nor  are  we  reared  on  figs  or  mead 
or  wheaten  bread,  but  on  cheese,  milk  and  oaten 
bread.     That  does  not  make  subtle  fellows."^ 

At  a  later  time  of  his  life,  in  the  Preface  to  his 
influential  work  The  Greater  Surgery  (1536),  pre- 
pared and  published  under  his  personal  supervision, 
he  has  given  us  a  summary  of  his  experience  in  the 
study  of  medicine  and  of  the  motives  which  largely 
influenced  him  in  his  career.  The  fact  that  he  per- 
sonally supervised  the  printing  of  this  work  lends 
particular  interest  to  the  passage. 

'T  have  always,"  he  says,  "applied  myself  with 
great  attention  and  industry  to  learn  the  foundations 
of  medicine,  whether  it  could  properly  be  called  an 
art  or  no,  or  what  there  is  in  it.  I  was  impelled 
by  many  reasons  to  do  this:  namely  by  the  uncer- 
tainty of  its  procedure,  and  that  so  little  reputation 
and  honor  have  appeared  to  come  from  its  practice ; 
that  so  many  sick  have  been  ruined,  killed,  crippled 
and  even  abandoned,  not  in  one  disease  only  but  in 
nearly  all  diseases.  So  uncertain  was  it  that,  in  my 
time,  there  has  been  no  physician  who  could  even 
cure  a  toothache  with  certainty,  to  say  nothing  of 
more  severe  illnesses.  Also  with  the  ancient  authors, 
such  folly  is  found  in  their  writings.  And  we  see, 
moreover,  how  great  cities  and  rich  persons  offer 
large  sums,  and  are  yet  abandoned  in  their  need  by 
the  physicians,  who  nevertheless  go  about  in  silks, 
golden  rings,  etc.,  with  no  little  reputation,  display 
and  idle  babble.     I  have  several  times  decided  to 

8  Op.  fol,  I,  261,  "Die  sechste  Defension." 


DEFIANCE  TO  FACULTY  AND  PROFESSION.         JJ 

abandon  this  art.  For  the  reason  that  no  one  seemed 
certain  of  anything,  that  it  was  a  collection  of  fables 
and  a  honeyed  device  for  attracting  pennies;  that 
it  was  an  art  founded  on  credulity,  so  that  if  one 
should  chance  to  hit  upon  the  day  of  recovery  he 
could  then  attribute  (though  unjustly)  the  credit  to 
his  art,  to  which  it  did  not  belong.  I  have  often 
quitted  the  art,  and  unwillingly  practised  it. 

"And  yet  in  this  matter  I  have  not  quite  followed 
my  convictions,  but  have  acted  with  my  usual  simple- 
mindedness.  I  therefore  attended  the  universities 
for  many  years,  in  Germany,  in  Italy  and  France, 
and  sought  the  foundations  of  medicine,  and  was  not 
only  anxious  to  devote  myself  to  their  doctrines, 
books  and  writings,  but  I  wandered  further  —  to 
Granada,  to  Lisbon,  through  Spain,  through  Eng- 
land, through  the  Mark  [Brandenburg],  through 
Prussia,  Lithuania,  Poland,  Hungary,  Wallachia, 
Transylvania,  Croatia,  the  Wendian  Mark  [i.  e., 
Lusatia,  now  a  part  of  Prussia  and  Saxony],  as  also 
other  countries  not  necessary  to  enumerate.  And  in 
all  corners  and  places  I  industriously  and  diligently 
questioned  and  sought  for  the  true  and  experienced 
arts  of  medicine.  And  not  alone  with  the  doctors; 
but  also  with  barbers,  surgeons,  learned  physicians, 
women,  magicians  who  practise  that  art;  with  al- 
chemists; in  the  cloisters;  with  the  noble  and  the 
common,  with  the  wise  and  the  simple.  But  even 
then  I  could  not  learn  to  be  fundamentally  certain 
— no  matter  what  disease  it  might  be.  I  pondered 
over  it  much — that  medicine  was  an  uncertain  art 


yS  PARACELSUS. 

not  honorably  to  be  followed,  an  unfair  art  to  be  hit 
upon  by  chance; — for  one  that  was  cured,  ten  are 
ruined.  It  caused  me  to  think  that  it  was  a  decep- 
tion by  spirits  to  mislead  men  and  to  degrade  them. 
I  again  abandoned  the  art  and  went  into  other  busi- 
ness. But  yet  again  was  driven  back  to  it.  But 
then  I  discovered  this  saying  of  Christ,  'The  whole 
need  not  a  physician,  but  the  sick.'  This  impressed 
me  so  much  that  I  had  to  substitute  another  view  of 
the  matter;  that  according  to  the  meaning  of  the 
saying  of  Christ,  the  art  of  medicine  is  true,  just, 
certain,  perfect  and  whole,  and  that  in  it  neither 
deception  by  spirits,  nor  fortune  was  to  blame,  but 
that  it  was  an  art  proven  in  need,  useful  to  all  sick 
and  leading  to  health.  When  I  accepted  this  and 
adopted  it  for  my  own,  it  was  necessary  that  I  should 
consider  what  that  medical  art  was  that  I  had 
learned  from  books  and  from  others,  and  I  found 
this  much,  that  no  one  of  them  had  known  the  foun- 
dation of  the  art,  nor  had  had  experience  in  it,  nor 
understood  it,  and- that  they  had  gone  (and  still  go) 
around  the  art  of  medicine  like  a  cat  around  the 
[hot]  porridge;  that  they  were  teaching  that  which 
they  themselves  did  not  know,  that  they  did  not 
understand  their  own  disputations,  that  they  visited 
and  advised  the  sick,  but  understood  neither  the 
disease  nor  the  art  of  curing.  Therefore  the  fault 
was  alone  in  those  who  practised  the  art. — There 
was,  and  is,  so  much  idle  talk :  mountebanks  and  chat- 
terers were  they  in  their  display  and  pomp,  and  there 
was  nothing  in  them  but  a  tomb  which  outwardly 


DEFIANCE  TO  FACULTY  AND  PROFESSION.         79 

is  beautiful  but  inwardly  a  stinking  and  corrupt 
mass,  full  of  worms.  For  such  reasons  I  was  forced 
to  seek  further — to  stop  reading  the  above-men- 
tioned evil  lies,  and  to  seek  for  another  foundation 
[of  medicine]  which  should  be  unspotted  by  such 
fables  and  babble ;  and  first  in  the  surgery  of  wounds 
which  in  ni)^  experience  thus  far  is  the  most  certain. 
What  experience  I  have  had  therein  follows  later. '''^ 

^  Chir.  Biicher,  etc.,  "Grosse  Wundartzney,"  Preface. 


AS  A  REFORMER  IN  MEDICINE. 

WHATEVER  be  the  final  judgment  As  to  the 
relative  importance  of  Paracelsus  in  the  up- 
building of  medical  science  and  practice,  it  must  be 
recognized  that  he  entered  upon  his  career  at  Basel 
with  the  zeal  and  the  self-assurance  of  one  who 
believed  himself  inspired  with  a  great  truth,  and 
destined  to  effect  a  great  advance  in  the  science 
and  practice  of  medicine.    By  nature  he  was  a  keen 
and  open-minded  observer  of  whatever  came  under 
his  observation,  though  probably  also  not  a  verv 
critical  analyst  of  the  observed  phenomena.     Pie 
was  evidently  an  unusually  self-reliant  and  inde- 
pendent thinker,  though  the  degree  of  originalitv 
in  his  thought  may  be  a  matter  of  legitimate  dif- 
ferences of  opinion.     Certainly  once  having  from 
whatever   combination  of   influences   made   up   his 
mind  to  reject  the  sacredness  of  the  authority  of 
Aristotle,  Galen  and  Avicenna,  and  having  found 
what  to  his  mind  was  a  satisfactory  substitute  for 
the  ancient  dogmas  in  his  own  modification  of  the 
neo-Platonic  philosophy,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  burn 
his  ships  behind  him.     Having  cut  loose  from  the 
dominant  Galenism  of  his  time,  he  determined  to 
preach  and  teach  that  the  basis  of  the  medical  science 


AS  A  REFORMER  IN  MEDICINE.  8l 

of  the  future  should  be  the  study  of  nature,  observa- 
tion of  the  patient,  experiment  and  experience,  and 
not  the  infalHble  dogmas  of  authors  long  dead. 

Doubtless  in  the  pride  and  self-confidence  of  his 
youthful  enthusiasm  he  did  not  rightly  estimate 
the  tremendous  force  of  conservatism  against  which 
he  directed  his  assaults.  If  so,  his  experience  in 
Basel  surely  undeceived  him.  From  that  time  on  he 
was  to  be  a  wanderer  again,  sometimes  in  great 
poverty,  sometimes  in  moderate  comfort,  but  mani- 
festly disillusioned  as  to  the  immediate  success  of 
his  campaign  though  never  in  doubt  as  to  its  ulti- 
mate success — for  to  his  mind  his  new  theories  and 
practice  of  medicine  were  at  one  with  the  forces  of 
nature,  which  were  the  expression  of  God's  will,  and 
eventually  they  must  prevail. 

Paracelsus  was  about  thirty-four  years  of  age 
when  he  left  Basel,  and  from  that  time  on  for  the 
remaining  thirteen  or  fourteen  years  of  his  life, 
he  seems  to  have  devoted  himself  with  a  wonderful 
tenacity  of  purpose  and  with  great  energy  and  in- 
dustry, against  opposition  and  discouragements  of 
great  magnitude,  to  the  establishment  of  his  medical 
system,  to  the  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of 
nature  in  terms  of  his  philosophy — to  assailing  the 
authority  of  ancient  and  venerated  dogmas,  and  to 
denouncing  the  corruption,  ignorance,  venality  and 
hypocrisy  of  the  medical  profession  of  his  day. 

It  is  evident  that  during  his  sojourn  in  Basel,  or 
perhaps  even  earlier,  a  profound  influence  had  come 
into  the  life  and  thought  of  Paracelsus  through  con- 


82  PARACELSUS. 

tact  and  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  revolt  against 
the  corruptions  and  observances  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
ohc  Church.  Luther's  translation  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament was  printed  at  Wittenberg  in  1522,  and  in 
1530  Zwingli  and  Leo  Judah  published  their  Ger- 
man translation  of  the  Bible,  some  four  years  before 
Luther's  complete  Bible  was  published.  His  ac- 
quaintance in  Basel  with  Erasmus  and  CEcolam- 
padius,  both  prominent  in  the  thought  of  the  Refor- 
mation period,  doubtless  also  served  to  influence 
him.  The  revolt  against  traditional  authorities  in 
the  Church  doubtless  appealed  to  the  man  who  was 
battling  against  similarly  entrenched  authorities  in 
medicine. 

Certainly  Paracelsus  was  thoroughly  familiar 
with  the  New  Testament  in  the  vernacular,  and  was 
deeply  influenced  by  its  spirit.  While  sympathetic 
with  the  Protestant  revolt  against  the  corruptions  of 
the  medieval  Church,  with  characteristic  indepen- 
dence he  condemned  alike  the  Papacy,  Lutheranism, 
Zwingliism  as  equally  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the 
teachings  of  Christ — which  to  his  mind  constituted 
the  true  catholic  Church — and  whose  complete  and 
all-sufficient  doctrines  were  for  him  to  be  found  in 
the  New  Testament.  For  the  interpretation  of  these 
doctrines  he  looked  neither  to  Pope  nor  the  Fathers, 
nor  to  Luther  or  Zwingli — just  as  for  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  art  of  medicine  he  did  not  depend  on 
Galen,  or  Avicenna,  or  university  faculties. 

As  we  follow  the  story  of  the  lifelong  struggle 
of  Paracelsus  ao:ainst  the  centuries-old  conservatism 


AS  A  REFORMER  IN  MEDICINE.  83 

opposed  to  him,  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  great 
sympathy  not  only  for  the  cause  for  which  he  la- 
bored but  also  for  the  self-sacrificing  devotion  and 
tremendous  earnestness  which  he  brought  to  his 
work. 

We  can  realize  now  at  this  distance  that  the 
condition  of  medical  science  and  teaching  was  in  his 
day  at  a  very  low  ebb.  Improvement  was  indeed 
hopeless  so  long  as  dogmas  held  as  infallible  in- 
hibited all  initiative  toward  rational  criticism  or 
new  experiment.  We  can  see  that  the  insistence 
of  Paracelsus  upon  the  study  of  the  patients  and 
their  diseases  rather  than  of  ancient  books,  his  em- 
phasis upon  the  value  of  experiments,  upon  the 
application  of  chemistry  to  the  understanding  of 
physiology  and  pharmacology,  his  own  radical  in- 
novations in  the  use  of  new  and  unauthorized  reme- 
dies, and  his  denunciations  of  the  hollowness  of 
much  of  the  medical  practice  and  teaching  of  his 
time, — that  these  were  all  working  in  the  direction 
of  progress. 

Realizing  this,  we  can  make  allowance  for  his 
crudities,  his  limited  understanding  of  the  goal 
toward  which  his  labors  tended,  his  superstitions, 
his  pseudo-science.  We  can  sympathize  with  this 
lonely  figure  battling  throughout  his  life  to  break 
the  chains  which  held  medical  science  enslaved,  see- 
ing the  path  which  must  be  followed  to  build  that 
science  upon  surer  foundations  —  yet  himself  too 
much  hampered  by  the  medieval  point  of  view,  too 
little  versed  in  the  methods  of  modern  science  to 


84  PARACELSUS. 

clearly  lead  the  way  toward  the  goal  he  struggled 
to  attain. 

But  though  we  recognize  the  importance  of  the 
work  of  Paracelsus,  while  we  admire  the  earnestness 
and  essential  sincerity  of  his  reform  campaign,  we 
should  be  unfair  to  his  opponents  of  the  conservative 
school  of  medicine,  if  we  failed  to  recognize  the 
shortcomings  of  Paracelsus  which  were  in  part  res- 
ponsible for  the  lack  of  appreciation  and  of  follow- 
ing which  he  could  command  during  his  life.  Modern 
historians  of  medicine,  while  recognizing  the  im- 
portance and  the  essential  sincerity  of  the  work  of 
Paracelsus  have  not  been  blind  to  these  shortcom- 
ings.    Thus  Professor  Wunderlich:^ 

"It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  a  man  who,  follow- 
ing his  own  spontaneous  reflections,  dared  to  break 
frankly  and  decisively  with  a  spiritual  domination 
of  fifteen  hundred  years'  standing,  must  have  been 
a  man  of  great  self-confidence  and  energy.  It  is 
just  as  certain  that  Paracelsus  possessed  sufficient 
acuteness  to  see  through  the  corruption  of  current 
practice  and  theory,  and  that  his  polemics  against 
them  gives  evidence  as  well  of  rare  power  as  of  in- 
disputable talent.  But  it  is  also  not  to  be  denied 
that  he  was  materially  supported  and  encouraged 
in  his  destructive  work  by  the  spirit  of  the  time,  and 
that  numerous  others  with  him  and  even  before  him 
had  equal  insight  into  the  necessity  of  reform  of 
the  science  and  presented  the  demand  for  it,  though 
not  with  the  violence  of  Paracelsus ....  It  may  be 

1  Geschichte  der  Medizin,  Stuttgart,  1859,  p.  97. 


AS  A  REFORMER  IN  MEDICINE.  85 

accepted  that  Paracelsus  did  not  intentionally  vio- 
late the  obligations  of  honest  conviction;  he  was 
manifestly  thoroughly  imbued  with  that  which  he 
taught,  and  when  he  plunges  into  confusions  and 
absurdities,  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  chiefly  only 
his  unclear  thinking  and  an  unfortunate  mode  of 
expression  that  disturbs  his  ideas.  .  .  .We  have  no 
right  to  accuse  him  of  intentional  mystifications,  but 
he  lacked  in  any  solid  positive  knowledge ....  The 
demands  of  logical  argumentation  are  totally  un- 
known to  him.  .  .  .Superstitious  prejudices  control 
him,  completely  obscure  and  corrupt  his  ideas  and 
are  at  all  points  confused  with  them.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  many  of  his  ideas  are  of  magnificent 
conception  and  in  advance  of  his  time." 

Dr.  Jos.  Bauer"  thus  summarizes  the  reform  in- 
fluence of  Paracelsus: 

"In  order  to  infuse  new  life  into  the  sluggish 
and  torpid  mass  of  science,  there  was  needed  a  giani 
spirit,  who  with  strong  hand,  regardless  of  author- 
ity and  dogma,  should  seize  the  reins,  and  undis- 
turbed by  the  judgment  of  his  time  should  under- 
stand how  to  sweep  away  the  accumulated  dross. 
All  these  qualities  the  reformer  Hohenheim  pos- 
sessed in  the  highest  degree,  and  he  ennobled  these 
gifts  by  an  unselfish  honest  spirit,  though  his  in- 
clination to  extravagances  drove  him  into  a  fanati- 
cism which  amounted  to  a  complete  autocracy  in 
the  domain  of  opinions.    In  order  to  maintain  these 

2  Geschichte  der  Aderldsse,  Munich,  1870,  p.  146. 


86  PARACELSUS. 

he  trod  underfoot  the  bounds  of  propriety  and  in 
that  way  aHenated  the  sympathy  of  calm  thinkers." 

The  medical  system  of  Paracelsus  was  not 
adapted,  in  Dr.  Bauer's  opinion,  to  influence  the 
physicians  of  his  time,  and  his  ideas  were  carried 
forward  by  a  relatively  small  number  of  followers — 
often  visionaries,  and  whose  extravagances  often 
did  much  to  discredit  his  thought.  So  also  Haser,^ 
while  acknowledging  the  great  value  of  the  services 
of  Paracelsus  to  medicine,  the  purity  of  his  enthu- 
siasm and  his  earnestness,  nevertheless  recognizes 
that  the  methods  he  used  to  attain  his  aims  in  the 
science  were  mistaken. 

"This  contempt  for  the  foundation  of  scientific 
medicine,"  says  Haser,  referring  to  Paracelsus's 
sweeping  rejection  of  the  importance  of  anatomy 
as  a  foundation  of  medicine,  "is  in  all  times  the 
symbol  of  all  transcendental  as  well  as  of  all  empir- 
ical systems.  .  .  .With  Paracelsus  this  undervalua- 
tion goes  so  far  that  he  only  uses  the  word  'anatomy' 
to  denote  that  which  in  his  opinion  should  form  the 
foundation  of  medicine,  the  knowledge  of  the  nature 
of  life."*  "Above  all  he  manifests  the  strong  love 
of  freedom  native  to  the  German  and  Swiss  stock. 
'No  one  can  be  another's  who  can  be  his  own.'  This 
native  self-consciousness  was  as  with  Luther,  with 
whom  he  had  much  in  common  that  is  good,  and 
with  John  Brown,  with  whom  he  had  much  in  com- 
mon that  is  bad,  nourished  by  the  fact  that  he  w^as 

3  Lehrhuch  der  Geschichte  der  Medisin,  3d  ed.,  Jena,  1875-82. 
^Op.  a^  Vol.  II,  p.  91. 


AS  A  REFORMER  IN  MEDICINE.  Sy 

lowly  in  origin,  was  born  and  lived  in  poverty,  and 
that  a  rude  bringing-up  separated  him  from  the 
finer  manners  of  the  cultivated  classes.  The  neglect 
and  slight  which  he  experienced  insulted  his  pride 
and  drove  him  back  into  himself.  By  blameworthy 
or  unblameworthy  misfortunes  he  arrived  at  that 
arrogant  disdain  so  peculiar  to  strong  but  unbend- 
ing natures,  through  premeditated  contempt  for 
the  great  accomplishments  of  his  contemporaries 
to  overestimation  of  his  own  power  and  his  owai 
accomplishments. ^'° 

One  of  the  later  writers  upon  the  place  of  Para- 
celsus in  the  history  of  medicine,  Dr.  Hugo  Mag- 
nus,^ after  commenting  upon  the  condition  of  med- 
ical science  of  the  time  for  which  the  dictum  attrib- 
uted to  Rhazes  might  well  have  served  as  a  motto, 
"The  study  of  a  thousand  books  is  more  important 
for  the  physician  than  seeing  a  thousand  patients," 
says,  "That  our  hero  soon  felt  the  lamentable  con- 
dition of  his  science  gives  very  certain  evidence  of 
a  sound  and  lively  critical  sense  in  matters  medical. 
And  that  he  soon  gave  expression  to  this  dissatis- 
faction in  powerful  attacks  upon  the  corrupt  condi- 
tions must  insure  him  at  all  events  our  sympathy. 
This  fact  alone,  that  Theophrastus  Bombastus  de- 
clared war  to  the  knife  upon  the  scholastic  degen- 
erate medicine,  will  assure  him  our  gratitude  and 
an  honorable  place  in  the  history  of  the  healing  art." 

Dr.   Magnus  emphasizes  that  Paracelsus  was 

5  Ibid.,  p.  87. 

^  Paracelsus  Jer  Ueherarzt,  Breslau,  1906,  p.  3. 


88  PARACELSUS. 

himself  nevertheless  possessed  of  a  medieval  point 
of  view,  that  he  attacked  his  problems  and  mission 
not  by  modern  scientific  methods  but  with  the  same 
kind  of  reasoning  as  v/as  used  by  nearly  all  his 
predecessors  and  contemporaries,  only  he  discarded 
the  conventional  medievalism  and  sought  to  sub- 
stitute a  similarly  unreal  and  fantastic  natural  phi- 
losophy of  his  own  based  upon  neo-Platonism. 

'Tor  Theophrastus  invented  no  new  weapons 
but  sought  to  achieve  the  highest  knowledge  with 
just  the  same  equipment  which  mankind  had  used 
up  to  his  time.  He  thought  to  discover  the  secrets 
of  life,  of  existence  and  grow^th,  by  bold  fantastic 
speculations,  just  as  nearly  all  natural  philosophers 
and  physicians  up  to  his  time  had  hoped  to  do.  So 
he  stands,  an  embodiment  of  the  conflict  which 
rationalism  has  waged  over  the  knowledge  of  na- 
ture, at  the  threshold  of  the  new  age  —  that  age 
which  attempts  to  tear  from  life  its  secrets  not  by 
speculation,  but  by  observation,  investigation  and 
experiment.  Vesalius  set  himself  to  the  task  to 
bring  this  new  era  into  the  world  just  as  Para- 
celsus, the  last  romanticist  in  the  struggle  over  the 
riddle  of  life,  lowered  his  blunted  weapons  and,  poor 
in  knowledge,  closed  forever  his  tired  eyes."^ 

In  these  estimates  of  not  inappreciative  nor  un- 
friendly authorities,  we  may  understand  why  it  was 
that  during  his  lifetime,  Paracelsus  seemed  to  have 
so  little  support  among  the  physicians  of  his  day.    It 

^  Ihid.,  pp.  14f . 


AS  A  REFORMER  IN  MEDICINE.  89 

is  not  perhaps  too  much  to  say  that  the  doctrines 
which  he  asserted  and  opposed  to  the  accepted  dog- 
matic medicine  owed  much  of  their  present  interest 
to  certain  truths  contained  in  them  which  were 
rather  intuitively  apprehended  than  clearly  con- 
ceived by  Paracelsus  himself.  As  knowledge  grew 
and  facts  developed,  these  foreshadowings  which 
the  vision  of  the  Swiss  physician  perceived  rather 
than  demonstrated,  gained  in  authority  and  respect. 
It  required  a  later  experience  to  comprehend  how 
much  of  brilliant  suggestion,  and  prevision  of  the 
future  methods  of  science  were  contained  in  the 
thought  of  Paracelsus. 

So  while  we  accord  Paracelsus  our  full  sym- 
pathy in  his  unequal  battle,  we  should  not  misjudge 
nor  too  severely  condemn  the  conservative  profes- 
sion of  his  day, — that  they  did  not  recognize  in  him 
a  true  prophet  of  medical  progress,  but  rejected  him 
as  a  dangerous  heretic  and  mischievous  agitator. 

Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  need  we  be  surprised 
that  his  native  force,  eloquence,  and  the  logic  and 
reasonableness  of  much  of  his  teaching  —  indeed 
perhaps  even  the  very  imaginative  and  mystical 
philosophy  by  which  he  sought  to  formulate  his  the- 
ories of  medicine — should  have  had  a  gradually  in- 
creasing influence,  so  that  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
during  his  lifetime  he  had  few  friends  and  sup- 
porters, yet  after  his  death,  and  as  his  many  writ- 
ings found  their  way  into  print,  his  work  laid  the 
foundation  for  a  very  material  victory  for  many  of 
the  aims  for  which  he  had  fought. 


go  PARACELSUS. 

Especially  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that,  though 
he  seemed  to  struggle  in  vain  against  overwhelming 
odds  during  his  lifetime — that  nevertheless  he  was 
largely,  if  not  indeed  mainly,  instrumental  in  shat- 
tering the  confidence  of  a  coming  generation  in  the 
sacredness  and  sufficiency  of  the  ancient  Greek  and 
Arabian  authorities.  The  remarkable  vogue  which 
his  writings  enjoyed  when  they  were  finally  printed, 
the  violent  conflicts  that  arose  in  the  profession  over 
the  theories  and  practice  he  advanced,  and  which 
resulted  in  many  victories  for  the  Paracelsans  even 
in  the  univei  sities,  the  strongholds  of  medical  con- 
servatism: all  evidence  that  there  was  great  vitality 
and  influence  in  the  ideas  ot*  Paracelsus, 

The  contributions  of  Paracelsus  to  medical  sci- 
ence, and  his  efforts  to  instil  into  students  and  prac- 
titioners of  medicine  higher  ideals  of  the  mission 
and  duty  of  the  physician  will  be  considered  more 
in  detail  in  later  chapters.  But  first  let  us  briefly 
estimate  his  place  and  influence  as  chemist. 


THE  CHEMIST  AND  REFORMER  OF 
CHEMISTRY. 

AS  previously  mentioned,  Paracelsus  was  in  youth 
L  and  earlv  manhood  a  student  of  the  chemical 
processes  and  theories  prevalent  in  his  time — par- 
ticularly experienced  in  the  operations  of  mining 
and  metallurgy  of  the  region  in  which  his  early  life 
was  spent.  To  this  experience  he  evidently  added 
by  study  of  the  principal  authorities  upon  alchem- 
ical knowledge  of  the  time,  as  references  or  allusions 
to  them  are  to  be  found  in  his  own  writings. 

The  chemists  of  the  period  were  of  two  classes: 
artisans  employed  in  the  mines  or  the  working  of 
metals,  in  pottery,  glass,  dyeing  or  similar  indus- 
tries; or  mystics  striving  by  obscure  and  occult 
means  to  transmute  the  baser  metals  into  gold  or 
silver,  or  to  discover  the  elixir  that  should  prolong 
life  or  endow  its  possessor  with  perennial  youth. 

The  practical  chemists  or  the  artisans  in  chem- 
ical industry  were  in  the  early  decades  of  book- 
printing  not  addicted  to  publishing.  Their  trade 
recipes  and  manuals  doubtless  were  in  use  in  the 
form  of  manuscripts  for  their  own  use  but  not 
usually  issued  for  public  information.  The  impor- 
tant pioneer  authors  in  technical  chemistrv,  Birin- 


92 


PARACELSUS. 


guccio,  George  Agricola,  Bernard  Palissy,  were  also 
of  the  period  of  Paracelsus,  though  their  works 
important  to  the  history  of  chemical  science  did  not 
appear  in  print  until  after  the  death  of  Paracelsus. 

The  principal  chemical  authorities  extant  during 
his  life  were  the  early  Greek  philosophers,  of  whose 
works  Pliny  was  the  most  important  compiler,  and 
the  works  written  by  or  attributed  to — for  many 
were  apocryphal — the  Arabians  Gheber  and  Avi- 
cenna,  the  Spaniard  (?)  Arnaldus  de  Villanova,  the 
German  Albertus  Magnus,  the  Englishman  Roger 
Bacon,  and  the  Spaniard  Raimundus  Lullus  (or 
Lully). 

As  far  as  the  chemical  knowledge  contained  in 
these  authors  is  concerned,  it  appears  from  the 
studies  of  M.  Berthelot  that  they  contained  very 
little  not  known  to  Egyptian  or  Greek  writers  of 
the  early  centuries  of  our  era.  The  metaphysical 
philosophy  and  mysticism  of  later  Greek  and  Egyp- 
tian chemistry  had,  however,  from  Chaldean,  Ara- 
bian and  other  Oriental  sources  been  added  to  and 
elaborated  to  such  a  degree  that  the  chemical  writ- 
ings of  the  above  authors  or  those  written  under 
their  names  were  fantastic,  obscure  and  often  in- 
tentionally incomprehensible. 

It  is  evident  from  the  writings  of  Paracelsus 
that  he  was  familiar  with  the  chemical  processes 
in  use  in  the  mines  and  metallurgical  laboratories 
of  the  country  in  which  he  lived.  His  knowledge 
of  the  chemistry  of  his  time  was  extensive  and  well 
assimilated.    It  is  also  evident  that  he  was  familiar 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  93 

with  and  influenced  by  the  often  fantastic  specu- 
lative theories  of  Lullus,  Arnaldus  de  Villanova  and 
others  respecting  the  nature  of  matter  and  the  ori- 
gins of  metals. 

Paracelsus  wrote  no  treatises  devoted  exclu- 
sively to  chemistry  or  alchemy.  The  few  which 
appeared  under  his  name  and  which  answer  such 
description  were  forgeries — as  judged  both  by  in- 
ternal evidence  and  by  the  evidence  of  Huser,  who, 
while  including  them  in  his  collection  because  they 
had  been  so  published,  characterized  them  as  apoc- 
ryphal. 

Nevertheless,  in  his  other  writings  upon  medi- 
cine, surger}'^  or  natural  philosophy,  he  includes 
much  chemistry,  particularly  in  the  books  entitled 
De  mineralibus,  De  natura  reriim,  Archidoxa.  In 
this  unsystematically  arranged  and  scattered  mate- 
rial are  recorded  many  facts  not  found  in  earlier 
writings,  and  operations  more  clearly  described  than 
previously.  One  historically  important  theory,  that 
of  the  three  elements  {tria  prima) — Sulphur,  Mer- 
cury and  Salt — as  constituting  principles  of  all  other 
substances,  seems  to  have  been  original  with  him 
though  using  earlier  speculations  as  material  for  its 
development. 

Historians  of  chemistry  have  generally  recog- 
nized the  important  influence  of  Paracelsus  upon  the 
development  of  chemical  science  in  emphasizing  its 
importance  to  medicine  and  pharmacology. 

Strangely  enough,  however,  it  was  just  in  rela- 
tion to  this,  his  most  certain  influence  upon  the  de- 


94  PARACELSUS. 

velopment  of  natural  science  that  his  reputation  for 
knowledge,  originality,  and  indeed  for  honesty,  was 
called  in  question  for  more  than  two  centuries.  The 
occasion  for  this  was  the  appearance  of  some  clever 
literary  forgeries  which  appeared  to  place  Paracel- 
sus in  the  position  of  a  plagiarist  and  to  deprive  him 
of  his  claim  as  an  initiator  of  the  era  of  chemical 
medicine.  Huser's  collection  of  the  philosophical 
and  medical  works  of  Paracelsus,  which  included, 
to  be  sure,  much  of  doubtful  or  spurious  origin,  ap- 
peared in  1 589-1 591. 

About  ten  years  later  there  began  to  appear  a 
series  of  treatises  bv  an  allesfed  Benedictine  monk 
— Basilius  Valentinus.  The  publisher  of  these  or 
at  least  of  the  earlier  ones  was  a  certain  Johann 
Tholde.  Tholde  claimed  to  have  discovered  and 
translated  into  German  the  Latin  manuscript.  These 
works,  especially  the  Triumphal  Chariot  of  Anti- 
mony, attracted  immediate  and  wide-spread  atten- 
tion because  of  their  real  chemical  importance  at 
the  time.  The  work  mentioned  was  a  real  contri- 
bution to  the  chemistry  of  antimony  compounds. 
The  inference  from  the  text  was  that  they  were 
written  early  in  the  fifteenth  century,  therefore  a 
century  before  Paracelsus. 

As  the  appearance  of  this  work  occurred  during 
the  period  of  the  greatest  popularity  of  the  works 
of  Paracelsus,  it  was  soon  noticed  that  there  was 
a  remarkable  similarity  both  in  matter  and  form 
of  presentation  between  much  contained  in  Basil 
Valentine  and  in  Paracelsus.    Like  Paracelsus,  Basil 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  95 

Valentine  had  abused  the  physicians-  and  their 
authorities;  the  mineral  remedies  used  by  Para- 
celsus were  here  also  advocated.  Even  the  three 
primary  principles  Sulphur,  Mercury,  Salt  were 
found  in  Basil  Valentine.  The  chemical  facts  were 
often  more  clearly  described  than  in  Paracelsus. 
In  short,  it  was  evident  to  critical  minds  that  a 
plagiarism  existed.  To  be  sure,  no  previous  writer 
had  ever  mentioned  or  quoted  a  Basil  Valentine. 
Nor  in  fact  were  the  alleged  original  manuscripts 
placed  in  evidence.  Paracelsus,  if  he  were  the 
plagiarist,  must  then  have  had  a  monopoly  in  his 
access  to  the  works  of  Basilius.  There  were  indeed 
writers  of  the  period  who  expressed  disbelief  in  the 
authenticity  of  the  find.  Generally,  however,  these 
came  to  be  accepted  as  genuine. 

From  certain  passages  in  the  writings,  however, 
it  became  evident  that  they  could  not  have  been 
written  as  early  in  the  fifteenth  century  as  alleged 
by  the  supposed  author,  for  allusions  to  metal  used 
in  type-founding,  and  to  the  French  disease,  made 
it  plain  that  their  date  could  not  be  earlier  than  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Nevertheless,  it  be- 
came quite  generally  accepted  that  there  had  existed 
a  writer  who  wrote  under  the  name  of  Basilius  Val- 
entinus  (though  no  record  of  such  a  name  could  be 
found  in  the  register  of  Benedictines),  that  he  lived 
before  Paracelsus,  and  that  therefore  Paracelsus 
had  stolen  his  chemistry  largely  from  the  supposed 
monk.  It  may  seem  strange  that  such  an  hypothesis 
became  so  easily  accepted,  but  it  should  be  noted 


g6  PARACELSUS. 

that  at  the  time  a  fierce  warfare  was  in  progress 
between  the  conservative  medical  profession  and  the 
university  faculties  on  the  one  side,  and  the  rapidly 
increasing  revolutionary  party  of  the  Paracelsan 
school,  on  the  other. 

Paracelsus  with  the  more  influential  and  gen- 
erally more  scholarly  classes  was  a  name  despised 
and  hated.  Plagiarism  w^as  to  be  expected  from  the 
leader  and  founder  of  the  new  school  with  its  vag- 
aries, fantasies  and  charlatanry.  Against  this  pre- 
sumption the  champions  of  Paracelsus  fought  at  a 
disadvantage.  Eventually  also  certain  statements 
crept  into  literature  which  seemed  to  confirm  the 
facts  of  the  existence  of  the  alleged  Basilius,  and  so 
history  finally  accepted  him  as  a  writer  previous  to 
Paracelsus.  The  reinvestigation  of  this  problem 
may  be  said  to  have  commenced  with  the  eminent 
historian  of  chemistry  H.  Kopp,  who,  beginning 
by  accepting  the  conventional  hypothesis,  after  half 
a  century's  work  in  the  early  history  of  chemistry 
ended  by  stating  that  in  his  judgment  the  Basilius 
Valentinus  literature  was  a  forgery  or  series  of 
forgeries  of  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  that  in  all  probability  Tholde  the  publisher 
was  himself  the  author.^ 

Since  Kopp's  time,  other  competent  students 
have  contributed  to  the  solution  of  the  problem — 
SudhofT,  Ferguson,  Lasswitz,  and  it  may  now  be 
accepted  as  certain  that  no  writings  under  the  name 
of  Basilius  Valentinus  had  appeared  nor  existed 

1  H.  Kopp,  Die  Alchemie,  Heidelberg,  1885,  pp.  29f. 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  97 

either  before  or  during  the  Hfetime  of  Paracelsus 
nor  indeed  prior  to  the  printing  of  his  collected 
works.  The  works  published  and  presumably  writ- 
ten by  Tholde  therefore  drew  not  only  from  Para- 
celsus but  doubtless  also  from  Agricola  and  perhaps 
from  still  later  writers.^ 

The  works  of  two  other  alleged  authors  upon 
chemistry,  Joh.  and  Isaac  Hollandus,  have  also  been 
shown  to  be  post-Paracelsan  and  were  literary  for- 
geries of  about  the  same  period  as  the  Basilius  lite- 
erature. 

By  the  relegation  of  these  writings  to  their  true 
period,  the  relative  importance  of  the  chemical  lit- 
erature of  Paracelsus  is  greatly  enhanced.  It  is  to 
him  that  we  must  turn  for  the  initiative  to  medical 
chemistry  as  well  as  for  its  propaganda;  to  himi 
also  the  credit  is  due  for  the  first  announcement  of 
many  interesting  though  by  no  means  epoch-making 
chemical  facts.  Through  this  revision  of  history 
also  Paracelsus  is  freed  from  the  odium  of  plagiar- 
ism and  consequent  lack  of  originality  which  in  the 
minds  of  the  majority  of  medical  or  chemical  stu- 
dents has  so  long  attached  to  him. 

The  interest  of  Paracelsus  in  chemistry  was  on 
the  whole  practical,  though  his  adopted  philosophy 
and  the  need  he  felt  to  replace  the  Galenic  and  Aris- 

_  2  For  a  more  detailed  account  of  the  Basil  Valentine  forgery  cf. 
Stillman,  Popular  Science  Monthly,  December,  1912,  "Basil  Valen- 
time."  A  communication  from  the  eminent  historian  of  early  medi- 
cine and  student  of  Paracelsus  literature,  Dr.  Karl  Sudhoff,  to  the 
writer  in  Jan.,  1913,  states  that  after  looking  through  many  thousands 
of  medieval  manuscripts  in  recent  decades,  there  is  absolutely  no  doubt 
possible  that  nothing  like  Basil  Valentine  or  Joh.  and  Is.  Hollandus 
existed  previous  to  Hohenheim. 


98  PARACELSUS. 

totelian  theories  by  new  ones  leads  him  often  into 
theorizing.  And  to  some  extent  these  theories 
doubtless  influenced  his  practice.  Thus  in  the  prep- 
aration and  purification  of  his  arcana  or  simple  ex- 
tracts or  principles  of  plants  and  minerals,  he  seems 
to  have  followed  as  a  working  hypothesis,  his  neo- 
Platonic  concept  of  the  spiritual  sympathetic  rela- 
tions of  all  things  in  the  universe  toward  man  and 
his  health.  Thus  if  he  could  free  the  real  active 
spirit  or  principle  of  the  plant  from  grosser  admix- 
tures, it  should  be  more  efficacious.  So  he  rejected 
the  extremely  complex  decoctions  of  herbs  of  the 
customary  pharmacopoeia  for  his  simpler  arcana. 

It  is  by  no  means  necessary  to  assume  that  all 
these  new  remedies  he  introduced  were  originated 
by  him.  Many  of  them  were,  though  not  authorized 
by  the  faculties,  in  use  as  popular  remedies  in  certain 
localities  at  least,  or  used  by  irregular  practitioners.* 
Thus  mercury  preparations  mixed  with  fats  had 
been  introduced  for  external  use  in  certain  treat- 
ments by  Italian  physicians  previous  to  Paracelsus. 
It  is  nevertheless  true  that  in  the  extension  of  the 
pharmacopoeia  to  a  great  number  of  preparations 
requiring  the  operations  and  methods  of  chemistry 
for  their  preparation  he  exerted  his  greatest  in- 
fluence upon  chemical  activity  and  development.  Not 
only  mercury  and  antimony  preparations  but  prep- 
arations of  lead,  arsenic,  copper  and  iron  found  a 

*  It  i§  probable  that  the  preparation  of  medicines  by  distillation  as 
given  in  the  work  on  the  distillation  of  simples  by  J.  Brunswyk, 
Strassburg,  1500,  was  familiar  to  Paracelsus.  Cf.  Stillman,  Scientific 
Monthly,  1918,  pp.  169f. 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  QQ 

place  among  his  remedies,  opium  also  seems  to  have 
entered  into  his  practice  quite  largely,  and  the  word 
laudanum  seems  to  have  originated  with  him — ■ 
whether  or  no  his  "laudanum"  were  an  opium  prep- 
aration, as  on  that  point  the  doctors  disagree. 

The  name  of  zinc  first  appears  in  the  writings 
of  Paracelsus,  though  that  he  therefore  first  named 
it,  is  not  to  be  inferred.  It  was  probably  at  least 
locally  in  use  in  mining  regions  in  which  he  had 
studied. 

'Tor  that  is  a  metal  which  fire  may  subdue  and 
which  can  be  made  into  an  instrument  by  man.  Such 
namely  are  gold,  silver,  iron,  copper,  lead,  tin.  For 
these  are  generally  known  as  metals.  Now  there 
are  some  metals  which  are  not  recognized  in  the 
writings  of  the  ancient  philosophers  nor  cornmonly 
recognized  as  such  and  yet  are  metals;  as  Zincken 
[zinc],  Kohaltet  [?],  which  may  be  hammered  and 
forged  in  the  fire."^ 

''There  is  also  another  metal  called  Zincken .... 
This  is  not  generally  known,  it  is  in  this  sense  a 
metal  of  a  special  kind  and  from  another  seed  [i.  e., 
origin].  Yet  many  metals  adulterate  [alloy]  with  it. 
This  metal  is  itself  fusible  for  it  is  from  three  fusible 
elements  [i.  e.,  the  three  primary  elements],  but  it 
has  no  malleability  but  only  fusibility.  And  its 
color  is  dififerent  from  the  colors  of  others,  so  that 
it  is  not  like  the  other  metals  as  they  grow.  And 
it  is  such  a  metal  that  its  iiltiina  materia  is  not  yet 
known  to  me.     For  it  is  nearly  as  strange  in  its 

3  op.  fol.,  II,  134,  "De  mineralibus." 


lOO  PARACELSUS. 

properties  as  quicksilver.  It  admits  of  no  admix- 
ture and  does  not  endure  metallic  manufacture,  but 
stands  by  itself."* 

Mercury  (quicksilver)  Paracelsus  did  not  con- 
sider a  true  metal.  Though  of  "metallic  nature," 
it  could  not  be  hammered  or  cast,  lacked  malleabil- 
ity, but  it  is  of  metallic  nature  because  ''by  chemical 
art  it  can  be  brought  to  malleability  and  fashioning" 
(doubtless  meaning  in  its  alloys  or  amalgams). 

The  first  mention  of  bismuth  is  sometimes,  though 
incorrectly,  ascribed  to  Paracelsus,  as  it  is  mentioned 
by  Agricola  in  his  Bermannus,  printed  in  1530,  and 
even  by  a  still  earlier  anonymous  writer.^ 

Another  observation  credited  to  Paracelsus  is 
the  distinction  between  "alums"  and  "vitriols"  in 
ascribing  to  the  former  an  earth  as  base,  and  to  the 
latter  a  metal.  This  was  for  that  time  a  logical  dis- 
crimination, for  it  was  Sir  Humphrey  Davy  who 
first  demonstrated  that  the  so-called  "earths"  could 
be  reduced  to  metals  hitherto  unknown.  The  term 
"reduction"  (reduciren)  as  applied  to  the  obtaining 
of  metals  from  their  ores  is  also  said  to  have  been 
first  introduced  into  chemical  literature  by  Para- 
celsus. 

Many  other  processes  not  new  are  described 
by  Paracelsus,  and  his  descriptions  are  frequently 
straightforward  and  with  none  of  the  intentional 
mystification  of  the  great  bulk  of  alchemical  writ- 
ings of  the  time  or  of  many  even  in  the  century  fol- 

^Ibid.,  II,  137. 

^  Cf.  Agricola,  De  re  metallica   (translated  by  H.  C.  and  L.   H. 
Hoover),  London,  1912,  p.  433,  n. 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  Id 

lowing.  That  they  are  not  always  intelligible  is 
true,  but  this  is  rather  from  the  use  of  terms  whose 
meaning  is  not  now  clear,  or  from  careless  and  hasty 
writing  or  editing.  The  following  is  an  illustration 
of  his  better  style.  It  describes  the  preparation  of 
white-lead  from  lead  and  vinegar  and  carbon  di- 
oxide gas. 

"The  mortification  [from  mors,  death]  of  lead 
consists  in  converting  it  into  cerussa  which  is  also 
called  Bleiweiss  [white-lead] .  Its  preparation  is  in 
two  ways,  one  in  medicine,  the  other  in  alchemy. 
Its  preparation  in  medicine  is  thus — that  you  hang 
it  [the  lead]  in  thin  sheets  over  a  sharp  wine- 
vinegar  in  a  glazed  pot.  The  pot  is  then  well  stop- 
pered so  that  no  spirits  may  volatilize,  and  set  in 
warm  ashes,  or  in  winter  behind  the  stove:  then 
you  will  find  in  ten  to  fourteen  days  good  white-lead 
adhering  to  the  sheets,  which  you  may  remove  with 
a  hare's  foot,  and  again  hang  the  sheets,  and  do  this 
until  you  have  white-lead  enough.  The  other  prep- 
aration of  white-lead — in  alchemy — is  like  this  ex- 
cept that  in  the  vinegar  much  of  the  best  and  finest 
salmiac  is  dissolved.  That  gives  a  fine  and  subtle 
white-lead."' 

By  the  first  of  the  two  methods  mentioned  the 
carbon  dioxide  gas  necessary  for  the  formation  of 
the  carbonate  must  come  from  the  fermentation  of 
the  vinegar.  This  makes  a  slow  process  to  be  sure. 
In  the  second  process,  with  the  addition  of  the  sal- 
miac, the  sal-ammoniac  as  then  prepared  often  con- 

6  Op.  foL,  I,  893f,  "De  natura  rerum." 


I02  PARACELSUS. 

sisteci  of  or  contained  ammonium  carbonate  which 
with  the  acetic  acid  of  the  vinegar  Hberated  carbon 
dioxide  in  greater  quantity  than  from  the  fermen- 
tation of  the  vinegar  alone. 

With  respect  to  his  theoretical  views  on  chem- 
istry, we  should  naturally  expect  to  find  them  fanci- 
ful and  unscientific,  and  we  are  not  disappointed. 
They  are  based  upon  the  theories  of  his  predecessors 
with  such  changes  as  commend  themselves  to  his 
own  preconceptions.  Thus  he  does  not  deny  the 
possibility  of  transmutation  of  the  metals.  But  his 
practical  sense  rejects  the  search  for  it  as  a  waste 
of  valuable  energy  otherwise  more  profitably  em- 
ployed. 

"Many  haA^e  said  of  alchemy  that  it  is  for  making 
gold  and  silver.  But  here  such  is  not  the  aim  but 
to  consider  only  what  virtue  and  power  may  lie  in 
medicines. ^'^ 

"Not  as  they  say  —  alchemy  is  to  make  gold, 
make  silver :  here  the  purpose  is  to  make  arcana 
and  to  direct  them  against  diseases."^ 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  history  of  devel- 
opment of  ideas  in  physical  or  chemical  science  it  is 
interesting  to  find  that  our  word  gas  which  was  first 
formulated  by  Van  Helmont  as  a  generalization  to 
include  the  various  elastic  fluids  which  we  now  call 
by  that  name,  finds  its  suggestion  in  Paracelsus.® 
Though  suggested  by  Van  Helmont  the  term  gas 

^  op.  fol,  I,  149,  "Fragmenta  medica." 

8  Op.  fol,  I,  220,  "Paragranum." 

9  See  Franz  Strunz,  /.  B.  van  Helmont,  Leipsic  and  Vienna,  1907, 
p.  30,  and  E.  O.  von  Lippmann,  Chemiker-Zeitung,  XXXIV,  p.  1. 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  IO3 

was  slow  in  making  its  way.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  the  celebrated  work  of  Joseph  Priestley  in  the 
eighteenth  century  bore  the  title  of  Different  Kinds 
of  Air,  Van  Helmont  (1577-1644),  who  was 
strongly  influenced  by  Paracelsus  and  one  of  his 
strong  defenders,  though  differing  from  him  in  his 
views  in  many  respects,  tells  us  that  he  derives  the 
word  gas  from  the  Greek  chaos.''''  This  term  chaos, 
however,  is  used  repeatedly  by  Paracelsus  as  a  gen- 
eralized term  for  air,  and  certainly  was  familiar  to 
so  thorough  a  student  of  Paracelsus  as  Van  Hel- 
mont manifestly  was. 

Thus  Paracelsus  says,  "And  they  are  born  from 
the  elements, ....  as  for  instance  out  of  the  element 
terra  (earth)  its  species,  and  out  of  the  element 
aqua  (water)  its  species,  out  of  the  element  ignis 
(fire)  its  species,  out  of  the  element  chaos  its  spe- 
cies."" 

''Thus  all  superfluous  waters  run  into  their  ele- 
ment called  the  Sea  {mare)  ;  whatever  is  terrestrial 
(earthy)  returns  to  its  element  called  Earth  {terra)  ; 
what  is  igneous  into  the  element  Fire  {ignis)  ;  and 
what  is  aerial  {aereum)  that  runs  into  its  element 
Chaos."^^ 

''The  elements  in  man  remain  indestructible.  As 
they  have  come  to  him,  so  they  come  from  him. 
What  he  has  received  from  the  earth  goes  back  to 
the  earth  and  remains  such  so  long  as  heaven  and 

^^  J.  B.  van  Helmont,  Opera  Omnia,  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  1682, 
p.  69  (29). 

.  11  Op.  fol,  I,  269,  "Labyrinthus  medicorum." 

12  Op.  fol,  I,  291,  "Das  Buch  von  den  tartarischen  Kranckheiten." 


104  PARACELSUS. 

earth  stand;  what  he  has  in  him  that  is  water  that 
becomes  water  again,  and  no  one  can  prevent  it; 
his  chaos  goes  again  into  the  air  [Luft],  his  fire 
to  the  heat  of  the  sun.'"' 

Thus  ''chaos"  used  by  Paracelsus  for  air  became 
''gas"  to  his  disciple  Van  Helmont,  though  even  in 
Van  Helmont' s  time  the  real  differences  between 
gases  were  so  little  understood  that  the  value  of  the 
generalized  term  was  not  appreciated  at  the  time. 
It  required  another  century  of  accumulated  facts  to 
make  it  necessary. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  if  Paracelsus 
really  discriminated  between  air  and  the  vapor  of 
water,  or  other  gases.  The  following  passage  is 
not  conclusive,  being  capable  of  different  interpreta- 
tions.   It  is  nevertheless  of  interest. 

"When,  from  the  element  water,  air  [Ltift]  is 
to  be  separated,  that  takes  place  by  boiling,  and  so 
soon  as  it  boils,  the  air  separates  from  the  water 
and  takes  with  it  the  lightest  substance  of  the  water, 
and  in  so  much  as  the  water,  is  diminished  so  accord- 
ing to  its  proportion  and  quantity  is  the  air  also  di-, 
minished."^* 

So  strong  an  adherent  as  Paracelsus  of  the  neo- 
Platonic  notions  of  the  interrelation  of  all  things  in 
the  universe,  would  naturally  be  interested  in  the 
prevalent  theories  of  the  nature  of  matter  and  of 
its  changes.  That  the  causes  which  influence  health 
and  disease  might  be  understood  it  was  necessary 

13  Chir.  Bilcher,  etc.,  p.  378,  "Von  offenen  Schaden." 

1"^  Op.  fol.,  I,  791,  "Archidoxa — De  separationibus  elementorum." 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  IO5 

that  the  nature  of  chemical  changes,  and  the  con- 
stitution of  matter  should  be  understood. 

Hindu,  Greek,  Arab  and  later  philosophers  had 
speculated  upon  the  nature  of  matter  with  the  result 
of  the  final  crystallization  in  medieval  philosophy 
of  the  theory  of  the  four  elements,  Fire,  Air,  Earth 
and  Water.  Upon  this  was  founded  the  Galenic 
doctrine  of  the  four  humors  in  the  human  organism, 
and  the  theory  had  become  in  the  medieval  Aristo- 
telianism  petrified  into  infallible  dogma  . 

Medieval  alchemists  had  as  the  result  of  the 
study  of  metallurgical  chemistry,  of  observations 
upon  the  occurrence  of  the  metals  in  the  earth  and 
the  changes  to  which  they  are  subject,  from  time  to 
time  developed  certain  independent  notions  of  the 
nature  of  matter.  The  strange  properties  of  mer- 
cury and  of  its  alloys  wuth  other  metals,  the  occur- 
rence of  sulphur  in  many  ores  and  its  appearance 
or  disappearance  in  the  treatment  of  these  ores,  had 
given  rise  to  speculations  as  to  the  possible  relations 
of  these  substances  to  the  growth  or  development 
of  the  metals  in  the  earth.  From  such  phenomena 
and  from  the  peculiar  properties  of  many  alloys  of 
the  common  metals  arose  doubtless  the  hopes  of 
transmutation  of  base  metals  into  purer  or  more 
precious  metals. 

Raimundus  Lullus  and  other  early  alchemists 
had  assumed  therefore  that  mercury  and  sulphur 
were  present  in  all  metals.  In  the  literature  of  the 
Middle  Ages  or  early  Renaissance  the  mercury  or 


I06  PARACELSUS. 

mercuries,  and  the  sulphur  or  sulphurs  were  not  the 
elements  sulphur  and  mercury  as  we  understand 
them  but  wxre  supposed  to  be  substances  related  to 
these  elements  and  capable  of  influencing  the  colors, 
fusibility,  behavior  toward  fire,  etc.,  of  the  metals 
of  which  they  w^ere  constituent  principles.  There 
was  no  agreement  among  writers  of  the  time,  how- 
ever, as  to  the  properties  of  these  elementary  sub- 
stances, nor  as  to  their  role  or  function  in  the  metals 
or  their  ores. 

Upon  this  vague  and  variable  foundation,  this 
inheritance  from  the  alchemists,  Paracelsus  con- 
structed his  more  comprehensive  and  consistent  the- 
ory of  the  three  elements,  Sulphur,  Mercury  and 
Salt,  which  was  destined  to  become  the  most  influen- 
tial theory  of  the  constitution  of  matter  until  grad- 
ually replaced  by  the  phlogiston  theory  in  the  eight- 
eenth century. 

Paracelsus  recognized  the  four  Aristotelian  ele- 
ments or  principles — Earth,  Air,  Water,  Fire — but 
considered  them  also  as  consisting  of  the  three  pri- 
mary elements  (tria  prima).  To  his  three  elements 
he  assigned  more  definite  and  better  characterized 
functions  than  had  previously  been  recognized.  Sul- 
phur was  the  combustible  principle  in  all  substances, 
not  merely  in  the  metals;  Mercury  that  which  im- 
parted the  property  of  liquidity,  or  fusibility,  and 
volatility;  and  Salt  that  which  determined  the  non- 
volatility  and  incombustibility  of  substances. 

"For  all  that  fumes  and  disappears  in  vapors  is 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  IO7 

Mercury ;  all  that  burns  and  is  consumed  is  Sulphur  ; 
all  that  is  ashes  is  also  Salt/'" 

These  three  constituents  of  all  matter  are  not, 
however,  to  be  understood  as  answering  to  the  defi- 
nition of  elementary  substances  as  at  present  ac- 
cepted. Like  the  Aristotelian  elements,  they  also 
typified  qualities  or  principles.  Thus,  Sulphur  was 
not  a  substance  of  constant  and  invariable  proper- 
ties entering  into  the  constitution  of  other  sub- 
stances, but  varied  with  the  substance  which  con- 
tained it.  To  use  the  words  of  Paracelsus — 'Tor 
as  many  as  there  are  kinds  of  fruits — so  many  kinds 
are  there  of  Sulphur,  Salt,  and  so  many  of  Mercury. 
A  dififerent  Sulphur  in  gold,  another  in  silver,  an- 
other in  iron,  another  in  lead,  zinc,  etc.  Also  a 
different  one  in  sapphire,  another  in  the  emerald. 
another  in  ruby,  chrysolites,  amethysts,  magnets,  etc. 
Also  another  in  stones,  flint,  salts,  spring-waters 
[fontibtts],  etc.  And  not  only  so  many  kinds  of 
Sulphur  but  also  so  many  kinds  of  Salt — difl^erent 

ones  in  metals,  gems,  etc And  the  same  with 

Mercuries,  dififerent  ones  in  the  metals,  others  in 
gems,  and  as  many  as  there  are  species — so  many 
Mercuries.  And  yet  they  are  only  three  things.  Of 
one  nature  is  Sulphur,  of  one  nature  is  Salt,  of  one 
nature  Mercury.  And  further  they  are  still  more 
divided,  so  that  there  is  not  only  one  kind  of  gold 
but  many  kinds  of  gold — just  as  there  is  not  only 
one  kind  of  pear  or  apple  but  many  kinds.     There 

15  Op.  foL,  I,  898,  "De  natura  rerum." 


I08  PARACELSUS. 

fore  there  are  just  as  many  different  kinds  of  Sul- 
phurs of  gold,  Salts  of  gold,  Mercuries  of  gold."'^ 

We  should  therefore  consider  the  three  elemen- 
tary principles  of  Paracelsus  and  his  followers 
rather  as  generalizations  of  certain  properties  in- 
herent in  and  common  to  matter,  than  as  elements 
in  the  modern  sense.  The  importance  that  this 
theory  possessed  for  his  time  was  that  it  was  more 
closely  related  to  phenomena  observed  in  chemical 
experimentation  than  the  concept  of  the  Aristotelian 
elements.  Consequently  it  became  the  dominant  hy- 
pothesis as  to  the  nature  of  matter  until  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  the  keen  critical  analysis  of  Robert 
Boyle  laid  bare  its  inadequacy  and  unscientific  basis. 
Boyle  indeed  it  was  who  first  clearly  enunciated  the 
modern  definition  of  an  element  as  a  substance  which 
cannot  by  our  efforts  be  resolved  into  simpler  con- 
stituents, though  he  did  not  venture  to  apply  this 
definition  to  any  particular  substance. 

The  great  service  of  Paracelsus  to  chemistry 
was  not  in  any  epoch-making  discovery  nor  in  any 
development  of  theory  of  permanent  value,  but  in 
opening  a  new  and  gTeat  field  for  chemical  activity 
in  the  application  of  chemistry  to  the  preparation 
of  mineral  and  vegetable  remedies.  He  not  only 
put  into  use  many  known  chemical  substances  in  his 
practice,  but  he  advocated  insistently  and  forcefully 
the  necessity  of  the  knowledge  of  chemistry  to  the 
physician,  and  emphasized  the  value  of  experiment 

16  op.  fol,  II,  132,  "De  mineralibus." 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  IGQ 

as  against  dependency  upon  the  records  of  the  an- 
cients. 

"But  because  you  are  ignorant  of  alchemy  you 
are  also  ignorant  of  the  mysteries  of  nature.  Do 
you  think  that  because  you  have  Avicenna  and  Sa- 
vonarola, Valescus  and  Vigo  that  you  therefore 
know  everything  ?  That  is  but  a  beginning. .  .  .  That 
which  Pliny,  Dioscorides,  etc.,  have  written  of  herbs 
they  have  not  tested,  they  have  learned  it  from  noble 
persons  who  knew  much  about  their  virtues  and 
then  with  their  smooth  chatter  have  made  books 
about  it.  .  .  .Test  it  and  it  is  true.  But  you  do  not 
know  it  is  true — you  cannot  carry  it  out,  you  cannot 
put  to  proof  your  author's  writings.  You  who  boast 
yourselves  Doctores  are  but  beginners. 

''Wliat  do  Hermes  and  Archelaus  attribute  to 
vitriol? — Great  virtue,  and  it  is  true  such  virtue  is 
in  it.  But  you  do  not  know  wherein  it  lies,  neither 
in  the  green  nor  in  the  blue  vitriol,  and  yet  you  call 
yourselves  masters  of  natural  things  and  do  not 
know  that !  You  have  read  so  that  you  know  what 
is  there  written  but  vou  can  make  no  use  of  it. 

"What  do  other  chemists  and  philosophers  say 
about  the  powers  of  mercur}^  ?  Much  indeed  and  it 
is  true.  But  you  do  not  know  how  to  prove  it  true. 
.  .  .  .You  do  nothing  but  read,- 'that  is  in  this,  this 
is  in  that,  that  is  black  and  this  is  green — and  fur- 
ther than  that  I  can  (God  help  me)  do  nothing, 
thus  I  find  it  written.'  Do  you  think  I  have  laid  my 
foundation  [of  medicine]  without  reason  in  the  arts 
of  alchemy?    Tell  me  who  are  to  be  trusted  in  the 


no  PARACELSUS. 

knowledge  of  the  virtue  of  things  in  nature,  those 
who  have  written  and  not  known  how  to  make  proof, 
or  those  who  have  the  knowledge  to  make  proof 
— but  have  not  written?  Is  it  not  true  that  Pliny 
has  never  shown  any  proofs?  What  did  he  write 
then? — That  which  he  had  learned  from  the  alche- 
mists. And  so  you  if  you  do  not  know  and  recog- 
nize who  these  are — you  are  but  a  lame  physician. ''^^ 

Another  illustration  of  his  argument  for  the 
value  of  experiment  and  his  criticism  of  those  who 
depended  solely  upon  the  ancient  authorities  is  the 
following  (he  is  discussing  the  preparation  of  medi- 
cinal principles)  : 

^'The  separation  of  those  things  that  grow  from 
the  earth  and  are  easily  combustible,  as  all  fruits, 
herbs,  flowers,  leaves,  grass,  roots,  woods,  etc.,  takes 
place  in  many  ways.  Thus  by  distillation  is  sepa- 
rated from  them  first  the  phlegm  [i.  e.,  a  watery 
distillate]  ;  then  the  mercury  [i.  e.,  volatile  or  gas- 
eous products]  and  the  oily  portion;  third  its  resin; 
fourth  its  sulphur  [that  which  burns]  ;  and  fifth  its 
salt  [non-volatile  and  uncombustible,  or  the  ash]. 
When  this  separation  has  taken  place  by  chemical 
art,  there  are  found  many  splendid  and  powerful 
remedies  for  internal  and  external  use. 

''But  because  the  laziness  of  the  supposed  phy- 
sicians has  so  obtained  the  upper  hand  and  their 
art  serves  only  for  display,  I  am  not  surprised  that 
such  preparations  are  quite  ignored  and  that  char- 
coal [i.  e.,  fuel]  remains  cheap.     As  to  this  I  will 

17  op.  fol.^  I,  pp.  221f,  "Paragranum." 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  Ill 

say  that  if  the  smith  could  work  his  metals  without 
the  use  of  fire,  as  these  so-called  physicians  prepare 
their  medicines  without  fire,  there  would  be  danger 
that  the  charcoal-burners  would  all  be  ruined  and 
compelled  to  flee. 

''But  I  praise  the  spagyric  [chemical]  physi- 
cians, for  they  do  not  consort  with  loafers  or  go 
about  gorgeous  in  satins,  silks  and  velvets,  gold 
rings  on  their  fingers,  silver  daggers  hanging  at 
their  sides,  and  white  gloves  on  their  hands,  but  they 
tend  their  work  at  the  fire  patiently  day  and  night. 
They  do  not  go  promenading,  but  seek  their  recrea- 
tion in  the  laboratory,  wear  plain  leathern  dress 
and  aprons  of  hide  upon  which  to  wipe  their  hands, 
thrust  their  fingers  amongst  the  coals,  into  dirt  and 
rubbish  and  not  into  golden  rings.  They  are  sooty 
and  dirty  like  the  smiths  and  charcoal-burners,  and 
hence  make  little  show,  make  not  many  words  and 
gossip  with  their  patients,  do  not  highly  praise  their 
own  remedies,  for  they  well  know  that  the  work 
must  praise  the  master,  not  the  master  his  work. 
They  well  know  that  words  and  chatter  do  not  help 
the  sick  nor  cure  them.  Therefore  the)^  let  such 
things  alone  and  busy  themselves  with  working 
with  their  fires  and  learning  the  steps  of  alchemy. 
These  are  distillation,  solution,  putrefaction,  extrac- 
tion, calcination,  reverberation,  sublimation,  fixa- 
tion, separation,  reduction,  coagulation,  tinction, 
etc.'-'^^ 

This  opening-up  of  a  new  field  of  chemical  activ- 
es Op.  fol.,  I,  906,  "De  natura  rerum." 


112  PARACELSUS. 

ity  which  promised  so  much  of  importance  in  its 
development  and  which  touched  directly  upon  the 
field  of  the  practice  of  medicine,  the  most  important 
field  of  natural  science  at  that  period,  and  the  ap- 
peals of  Paracelsus  to  abandon  the  search  for  the 
transmutation  of  metals  and  other  vain  goals  of 
the  alchemists,  met  almost  immediate  response 
among  those  students  who  were  interested  in  the 
study  of  nature — and  there  were  many  such — and 
it  was  indeed  from  the  chemists  that  the  most  en- 
thusiastic and  productive  followers  of  Paracelsus 
arose.  A  new  and  important  impulse  had  been 
imparted  to  chemistry,  so  that  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  no  great  chemical  discoveries  or  generaliza- 
tions can  be  attributed  to  Paracelsus  he  may  yet 
with  justice  be  called  a  reformer  of  chemistry. 

It  is  interesting  to  contrast  the  work  of  Para- 
celsus with  that  of  his  great  German  contemporary, 
Georgius  Agricola  (Georg  Bauer),  1494-1555. 
Agricola  was  also  medically  trained  as  well  as  thor- 
oughly versed  in  mining  and  metallurgy. 

His  descriptions  of  mining  and  of  metallurgical 
and  chemical  facts  and  processes  are  systematic, 
orderly  and  generally  clear  and  comprehensible. 
His  theory  was  based  upon  the  prevalent  Aristo- 
telian ideas.  His  published  work  upon  mining  and 
metallurgy  possesses  more  permanent  interest  from 
a  scientific  point  of  view  than  the  writings  of  Para- 
celsus because  he  confined  himself  to  the  task  of 
presenting  the  established  facts  and  processes  of  his 
specialty  in  clear,  detailed  description,   so  that  it 


THE  REFORMER  OF  CHEMISTRY.  II3 

might  be  of  use  for  others  who  should  follow  in  the 
same  line  of  work.  Many  chemical  facts  and  pro- 
cesses are  mentioned  that  appear  also  in  Paracelsus, 
but  as  with  Paracelsus,  so  with  Agricola  there  is 
no  pretension  that  these  are  original  with  the  author. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  neither  one  of  these 
two  men — the  most  important  of  their  century  in 
chemistry — seems  to  have  been  aware  of  the  exist- 
ence of  the  other.  Agricola  in  Saxony  and  Para- 
celsus in  Switzerland  and  Austria  possessed  many 
interests  and  much  knowledge  in  common,  but  Agric- 
ola's  great  work  appeared  after  the  death  of  Para- 
celsus, while  those  works  of  Paracelsus  which  con- 
tain most  of  his  chemistry  did  not  appear  in  print 
until  after  the  death  of  Agricola.  It  is  therefore  not 
surprising  that  neither  knew  of  the  other.  Agricola' s 
great  work  De  re  metaUica  remains  a  classic  in 
technical  chemistry,  while  Paracelsus  has  left  little 
that  is  of  permanent  value  to  chemical  science.  But 
the  reform  of  chemistry  w^as  not  the  main  aim 
of  the  efforts  of  Paracelsus,  to  him  that  was  but 
subordinate  to  his  great  ambition,  the  revolution  of 
medicine. 

Yet  the  influence  of  Paracelsus  upon  chemistry 
was  epoch-making.  By  pointing  out  a  rational  and 
promising  field  for  chemical  activity  and  by  his  own 
successful  application  of  chemically  prepared  reme- 
dies he  inaugurated  a  movement  which  has  con- 
tinued without  interruption  and  with  increasing  im- 
portance to  the  present  day. 

From  his  time  on  a  new  vitality  was  infused 


114 


PARACELSUS. 


into  chemical  thought  and  activity.  Instead  of  the 
passive  acceptance  of  ancient  authorities  and  tra- 
ditions, there  began  a  struggle  for  progress  through 
experiments  and  their  interpretation,  often  indeed 
unscientific  and  illogical  at  first ;  nevertheless,  only 
from  such  beginnings  of  independent  thought  and 
initiative  was  the  scientific  spirit  to  be  developed. 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  MEDICAL  SCIENCE 
AND  PRACTICE. 

WHILE  the  specific  contributions  of  Paracelsus 
to  chemical  knowledge  are  comparatively 
unimportant  and  yet  his  influence  as  a  reformer 
beyond  question,  in  medical  science  the  opposite 
appears  more  nearly  true. 

There  appears  to  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  real 
value  of  many  of  his  contributions  to  medical  knowl- 
edge and  practice,  while  competent  authorities  differ 
widely  as  to  the  extent  and  character  of  his  in- 
fluence upon  medical  progress.  It  may  be  admitted 
that  his  vigorous  assaults  upon  the  degenerate  Ga- 
lenism  of  his  day  were  eftective  in  arousing  an 
attitude  of  criticism  and  questioning  which  assisted 
greatly  the  influence  of  other  workers  whose  labors 
were  laying  less  sensationally  but  more  soundly  the 
foundation-stones  of  scientific  medicine. 

Vesalius,  often  called  the  founder  of  the  modern 
science  of  anatomy,  and  Pare,  the  "Eather  of  Sur- 
gery,'' were  both  contemporaries  of  Paracelsus, 
though  their  great  works  appeared  only  after  the 
death  of  Paracelsus.    The  Greater  Surgery  of  Para- 


Il6  PARACELSUS. 

celsus  had  appeared  nearly  thirty  years  before 
Fare's  classical  work  and  had  passed  through  sev- 
eral editions,  and  it  is  said  that  Pare  acknowledged 
his  indebtedness  to  Paracelsus  in  the  Preface  to  the 
first  edition  of  his  work/ 

Admitting  that  none  of  the  medical  treatises  of 
Paracelsus  has  the  scientific  value  of  the  works  of 
his  great  contemporaries,  it  should  nevertheless  not 
be  forgotten  that  his  work  may  have  had  an  influ- 
ence for  progress  in  his  own  time  much  greater  than 
its  present  value  in  the  light  of  later  knowledge. 
Dr.  Sudhoflf  records  some  nineteen  editions  of  the 
Greater  Surgery  by  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, in  the  German,  French,  Latin  and  Dutch  lan- 
guages, and  other  works  of  his  shared  in  somewhat 
less  degree  in  this  popularity. 

The  disapproval  and  hostility  of  the  universities 
and  the  profession  toward  Paracelsus  should  not  be 
permitted  to  mislead  us  into  underrating  his  influ- 
ence, as  it  may  be  recalled  that  both  Vesalius  and 
Pare  also  suffered  from  this  hostility.  Vesalius  was 
denounced  by  his  former  teacher  Sylvius  as  an  in- 
sane heretic  and  his  great  work  on  anatomy  was 
denounced  to  the  Inquisition.  Though  he  was  not 
condemned  by  that  body  his  professorship  at  Padua 
became  untenable,  and  he  was  forced  to  return  to 
his  native  city  Brussels  and  is  said  to  have  become 
a  hypochondriac  as  the  result  of  his  persecutions. 

Pare  was  more  successful  in  maintaining  his 
professional  position  through  official  support,  though 

^  Cf.  Stoddart,  The  Life  of  Paracelsus,  p.  65. 


MEDICAL   SCIENCE  AND   PRACTICE.  II7 

the  faculty  of  the  University  of  Paris  protested  his 
tenure  of  office. 

The  history  of  medical  science  and  discovery  has 
been  the  subject  of  more  thorough  study  than  most 
of  the  natural  sciences,  and  a  number  of  competent 
critics  of  early  medical  history  have  estimated  the 
place  of  Paracelsus  in  the  development  of  various 
departments  of  that  science.  From  such  sources 
may  be  best  summarized  the  contributions  of  Para- 
celsus. 

Thus  with  respect  to  surgery,  Dr.  Edmund  Owen 
in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  (eleventh  edition, 
article  "Surgery")  says: 

"The  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  are  al- 
most entirely  without  interest  for  surgical  history. 
The  dead  level  of  tradition  is  broken  first  by  two 
men  of  originality  and  genius,  P.  Paracelsus  ( 1493- 
1541)  and  Pare,  and  by  the  revival  of  anatomy  at 
the  hands  of  Andreas  Vesalius  (15 14- 1564)  and  Ga- 
briel Fallopius  (1523- 1 562),  professors  at  Padua. 
Apart  from  the  mystical  form  in  which  much  of  his 
teaching  was  cast,  Paracelsus  has  great  merits  as 
a  reformer  of  surgical  practice.  .  .  .It  is  not,  how- 
ever, as  an  innovator  in  operative  surgery,  but 
rather  as  a  direct  observer  of  natural  processes, 
that  Paracelsus  is  distinguished.  His  description 
of  'hospital  gangrene,'  for  example,  is  perfectly 
true  to  nature;  his  numerous  observations  on  syphi- 
lis are  also  sound  and  sensible;  and  he  was  the  first 
to  point  out  the  connection  between  cretinism  of  the 
offspring  and  goiter  of  the  parents.'' 


Il8  PARACELSUS. 

So  also  Proksch,'  the  historian  of  syphiHtic  dis- 
eases, credits  Paracelsus  with  the  recognition  of 
the  inherited  character  of  this  disease  and  states 
that  there  are  indeed  but  few  and  subordinate  regu- 
lations in  modern  syphilis  therapy  which  Paracelsus 
has  not  enunciated.  Iwan  Bloch  also  attributes 
the  first  observation  of  the  hereditary  character  of 
that  disease  to  Paracelsus.'  That  Paracelsus  de- 
voted so  much  attention  to  the  consideration  of  these 
diseases  was  evidently  made  a  subject  of  contemp- 
tuous criticismi  by  his  opponents,  as  may  be  inferred 
from  his  replies  to  them  in  the  Paragmnum  :* 

''Why,  then,  do  you  clowns  [Gugelfritzen]  abuse 
my  writings,  which  you  can  in  no  way  refute  other 
than  by  saying  that  I  know  nothing  to  write  about 
but  of  luxus  and  venerel  Is  that  a  trifling  thing? 
or  in  your  opinion  to  be  despised?  Because  I  have 
understood  that  all  open  wounds  may  be  converted 
into  the  French  disease  [i.  e.,  syphilis],  which  is  the 
worst  disease  in  the  whole  world — no  worse  has 
ever  been  known — which  spares  nobody  and  attacks 
the  highest  personages  the  most  severely — shall  I 
therefore  be  despised?  Because  I  bring  help  to 
princes,  lords  and  peasants  and  relate  the  errors 
that  I  have  found,  and  because  this  has  resulted  in 
good  and  high  reputation  for  me,  you  would  throw 
me  down  into  the  mire  and  not  spare  the  sick.    For 

2  Quoted    by    Baas,    Geschichtliche   Entwickeliing    des    drztlichen 
Standes,  p.  210. 

3  Neuburger  and   Pagel,  Handhuch  der  Geschichte  der  Medisin, 
III,  p.  403. 

4  Op.  foL,  1,  201f. 


MEDICAL   SCIENCE  AND   PRACTICE.  IIQ 

it  is  they  and  not  I  whom  you  would  cast  into  the 
gutter." 

Dr.  Bauer^  calls  attention  to  the  rational  protest 
of  Paracelsus  against  the  excessive  blood-letting  in 
vogue  at  the  time,  his  objections  being  based  on  the 
hypothesis  that  the  process  disturbed  the  harmonv 
of  the  system,  and  upon  the  argument  that  the  blood 
could  not  be  purified  by  merely  lessening  its  quantity. 

"For  the  healing  art  and  for  pharmacology  in 
connection  therewith,"  says  Dr.  E.  Schaer  in  his 
monograph  on  the  history  of  pharmacology,''  ''re- 
form in  the  first  instance  attaches  to  the  name  of 
Theophrastus  Paracelsus  whose  much  contested  im- 
portance for  the  rebirth  of  medicine  in  the  period 
of  the  Reformation  has  been  in  recent  times  finally 
established  in  a  favorable  direction  by  a  master  work 
of  critical  investigation  of  sources ....  But  however 
much  overzealous  adherents  of  the  brilliant  physi- 
cian may  have  misunderstood  him  and  have  gone  at 
times  beyond  the  goal  he  established,  nevertheless 
the  historical  consideration  of  pharmacology  will 
not  hesitate  to  yield  to  Paracelsus  the  merit  of  the 
effective  repression  of  the  medicA^al  polypharmacv 
often  as  meaningless  as  it  was  superstitious,  and  to 
credit  him  with  having  effectively  called  attention 
to  the  pharmacological  value  of  many  metallic  prep- 
arations and  analogous  chemical  remedies." 

Dr.  Max  Neuburger'  thus  summarizes  the  claims 


°  Geschichte  der  Aderldsse,  p.  147. 

6  Neuburger  and  Pagel,  op.  cit.,  II,  pp.  565f. 

^  Ibid.,  II,  pp.  36ff. 


120  PARACELSUS. 

of  Paracelsus  to  a  place  in  the  history  of  the  useful 
advances  in  medicine : 

''Under  the  banner  of  utilitarianism  Paracelsus 
rendered  the  practical  art  of  healing  so  many  ser- 
vices that  in  this  respect  his  preeminent  historical 
importance  cannot  be  doubted.  In  bringing  chem- 
istry to  a  higher  plane  and  in  making  the  new  ac- 
cessory branch  useful  to  medicine,  in  comprehending 
the  value  of  dietetics,  in  teaching  the  use  of  a  great 
number  of  mineral  substances  (iron,  lead,  copper, 
antimony,  mercury) ,  and  on  the  other  hand  in  teach- 
ing the  knowledge  of  their  injurious  actions,  in 
paving  the  way  to  the  scientific  investigation  of 
mineral  waters  (determina^tion  of  the  iron  contents 
by  nutgalls),  in  essentially  improving  pharmacy 
(with  his  disciples  Oswald  Croll  and  Valerius  Cor- 
dus)  by  the  preparation  of  tinctures  and  alcoholic 
extracts  ....  he  has  achieved  really  fundamental 
merit  for  all  time." 

It  was  also  no  unimportant  service  that  Para- 
celsus rendered  to  medical  science  in  attributing  to 
natural  rather  than  to  the  mystical  influence  of 
devils  or  spirits  such  nervous  maladies  as  St.  Vitus's 
dance.  It  is  doubtful  perhaps  if  his  influence  in 
this  direction  was  very  immediate  upon  contempo- 
rary thought,  at  least  if  we  may  judge  from  the  sad 
history  of  the  trials,  tortures  and  executions  of 
witches  during  a  century  after  the  activity  of  Para- 
celsus. 

Doubtless   also  the  fantastic  character  of  the 


MEDICAL   SCIENCE  AND   PRACTICE.  121 

philosophy  of  Paracelsus  itself  served  to  diminish 
the  effect  of  his  sounder  and  saner  thought. 

A  distinguished  student  of  the  history  of  science, 
Andrew  D.  White,  thus  characterizes  the  services 
of  Paracelsus  in  this  direction:^ 

''Yet,  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
cases  of  'possession'  on  a  large  scale  began  to  be 
brought  within  the  scope  of  medical  science,  and 
the  man  who  led  in  this  evolution  of  medical  science 
was  Paracelsus.  He  it  was  who  first  bade  modern 
Europe  think  for  a  moment  upon  the  idea  that  these 
diseases  are  inflicted  neither  by  saints  nor  demons, 
and  that  the  'dancing  possession'  is  simply  a  form 
of  disease  of  which  the  cure  may  be  effected  by 
proper  remedies  and  regimen.  Paracelsus  appears 
to  have  escaped  any  serious  interference;  it  took 
some  time,  perhaps,  for  the  theological  leaders  to 
understand  that  he  had  'let  a  new  idea  loose  upon 
the  planet,'  but  they  soon  understood  it  and  their 
course  was  simple.  For  about  fifty  years  the  new 
idea  was  well  kept  under,  but  in  1563  another  phy- 
sician, John  Wier  of  Cleves,  revived  it  at  much  risk 
to  his  position  and  reputation." 

An  interesting  thesis  maintained  by  Paracelsus 
was  the  doctrine  that  every  disease  must  have  its 
remedy.  The  scholastic  authorities  had  pronounced 
certain  diseases  as  incurable,  and  they  were  ac- 
cordingly so  considered  by  the  profession.  Reject- 
ing as  he  did  the  ancient  authorities,  Paracelsus 

s  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology,  New  York 
and  London,  1896  (reprinted  1919),  II,  p.  139. 


122  PARACELSUS. 

naturally  enough  rejected  this  dogma  as  necessarily 
true.  Manifestly  also  he  believed  that  he  himseU 
had  with  his  new  remedies  effected,  cures  of  certain 
of  these  diseases,  though  he  makes  no  pretensioii 
to  be  able  to  cure  all  diseases.  The  history  of  med- 
ical thought  and  discussion  shows  that  this  thesis 
of  Paracelsus  was  a  frequent  subject  of  partisan 
debate  during  the  century  after  Paracelsus. 

Paracelsus  sustains  his  thesis,  however,  not  by 
the  method  of  modern  science — upon  evidence  of 
experiment  and  observation — but  by  the  philosoph- 
ical or  rather  metaphysical  argument  of  its  a  priori 
reasonableness  in  the  divine  purpose,  and  by  his 
interpretation  of  the  doctrines  of  Christ,  So  he 
says  :^ 

''Know  therefore  that  medicine  is  so  to  be  trusted 
in  relation  to  health — that  it  is  possible  for  it  to 
heal  every  natural  disease,  for  whenever  God  has 
entertained  anger  and  not  mercy,  there  is  always 
provided  for  every  disease  a  medicine  for  its  cure. 
For  God  does  not  desire  us  to  die  but  to  live,  and  to 
live  long,  that  in  this  life  we  may  bear  sorrow  and 
remorse  for  our  sins  so  that  we  may  repent  of  them." 

"There  is  yet  another  great  error  which  has 
strongly  influenced  me  to  write  this  book — namely, 
because  they  say  that  diseases  which  I  include  in 
this  book  are  incurable.  Behold,  now,  their  great 
folly:  how  can  a  physician  say  that  a  disease  is 
incurable  when  death  is  not  present;  those  only 

^  Liber  de  religione  perpetua,  quoted  by  Sudhoff,  Versuch  einer 
Kritik  der  Echtheit  der  Paracelsischen  Schriften,  Berlin.  1894-99,  II, 
p.  415. 


MEDICAL   SCIENCE  AND   PRACTICE.  I23 

are  incurable  in  which  death  is  present.  Thus  they 
assert  of  gout;  of  epilepsy.  O  you  foolish  heads, 
who  has  authorized  you  to  speak,  because  you  know 
nothing  and  can  accomplish  nothing  ?  Why  do  you 
not  consider  the  saying  of  Christ,  where  he  says 
that  the  sick  have  need  of  a  physician?  Are  those 
not  sick  whom  you  abandon?  I  think  so.  If,  then, 
they  are  sick  as  proven,  then  they  need  the  physician. 
If,  then,  they  need  the  physician,  why  do  you  say 
they  cannot  be  helped  ?  They  need  the  physician  that 
they  may  be  helped  by  him.  Why,  then,  do  you  say 
that  they  are  not  to  be  helped?  You  say  it  because 
you  are  born  from  the  labyrinth  [of  errors]  of  medi- 
cine, and  Ignorance  is  your  mother.  Every  disease 
has  its  medicine.  For  it  is  God's  will  that  He  be 
manifested  in  marvelous  ways  to  the  sick."^^ 

This  is  obviously  setting  dogma  against  dogma, 
and  opposing  to  scholasticism  the  methods  of  scho- 
lasticism. Yet  that  this  dictum  of  Paracelsus  was 
not  without  influence  upon  contemporary  thought  is 
evidenced  by  a  passage  in  the  writings  of  Robert 
Boyle  in  the  century  following  :^^  "But,  Pyrophi- 
lus,  though  we  cannot  but  disapprove  the  vain- 
glorious boasts  of  Paracelsus  himself  and  some  of 
his  followers,  who  for  all  that  lived  no  longer  than 
other  men,  yet  I  think  mankind  owes  something  to 
the  chymists  for  having  put  some  men  in  hope  of 
doing  greater  cures  than  have  been  formerly  aspired 
to  or  even  thought  possible,  and  thereby  engage 

10  op.  fol,  I,  253,  "Die  erste  Defension." 

"  Boyle's  Works,  Birch's  ed.,  London,  1744,  I.  p.  48L 


124  PARACELSUS. 

them  to  make  trials  and  attempts  in  order  thereunto. 
For  not  only  before  men  were  awakened  and  excited 
by  the  many  promises  and  some  great  cures  of  Ar- 
naldus  de  Villanova,  Paracelsus,  Rulandus,  Severi- 
nus  and  Helmont,  many  physicians  were  wont  to  be 
too  forward  to  pronounce  men  troubled  with  such 
and  such  diseases  incurable,  and  rather  detract 
from  nature  and  art  than  confess  that  those  two 
could  do  what  ordinary  physick  could  not,  but  even 
now,  I  fear,  there  are  but  too  many  who  though  they 
will  not  openly  affirm  that  such  and  such  diseases 
are  absolutely  incurable,  yet  if  a  particular  patient 
troubled  with  any  of  them  is  presented,  they  will  be 
very  apt  to  undervalue  (at  least)  if  not  deride  those 
that  shall  attempt  and  hope  to  cure  them.'' 

In  a  previous  chapter  have  been  noted  the  ra- 
tional consideration  and  treatment  which  Paracelsus 
applied  to  wounds  and  open  sores.  Instead  of  the 
customary  treatment  of  closing  up  by  sewing  or 
plastering,  or  covering  them  with  poultices  and  ap- 
plications, he  advocated  cleanliness,  protection  from 
dirt  and  "external  enemies,"  and  regulation  of  diet, 
trusting  to  nature  to  effect  the  cure.  "Every  wound 
heals  itself  if  it  is  only  kept  clean. "^^ 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Paracelsus  enjoyed  a  con- 
siderable reputation  as  a  skilful  and  successful  prac- 
titioner, and  there  is  contemporary  testimony,  as 
well  as  his  own  statements,  to  show  that  he  was 
frequently  sent  for  even  from  long  distances  to  treat 

^2  Cf.  Fr.  Helfreich  in  Neuburger  and  Pagel,  op.  cit.,  Ill,  p.  15. 


MEDICAL   SCIENCE  AND   PRACTICE.  I25 

wealthy  and  prominent  patients  whose  maladies  had 
baffled  the  skill  of  the  Galenic  physicians. 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  popular  reputations  of 
physicians  are  not  always  the  true  measure  of  ability 
even  in  our  day.  Nevertheless,  there  seems  little 
reason  to  doubt  in  spite  of  the  assertion  of  hostile 
critics  of  his  time,  that  with  his  new  remedies,  his 
keen  observation  and  his  unusually  open  mind,  he  was 
indeed  able  to  afford  relief  or  to  effect  cures  where 
the  orthodox  physicians  trammeled  by  their  infallible 
dogmas  were  unsuccessful.  That  his  new  methods 
sometimes  did  harm  rather  than  good  is  quite  possible. 
That  would  naturally  be  the  result  of  breaking  rad- 
ically new  paths.  And  an  independent  empiricism 
— a  practice  founded  upon  experiment  and  personal 
observation — seems  to  have  been  his  practice  and 
his  teaching:  "Experientia  est  Scientia."  It  seems 
probable  that  in  his  dealings  with  the  sick,  his  fan- 
tastic natural  philosophy  was  rather  subordinated 
to  a  native  common  sense  and  practical  logic.  As 
stated  by  Professor  Neuburger,^^  ''We  see  in  Para- 
celsus ....  the  most  prominent  embodiment  of  that 
enigmatic,  intuitive,  anticipative  intelligence  of  the 
people,  which,  drawing  upon  the  unfathomable 
sources  of  a  rather  intuitive  than  consciously  recog- 
nized experience,  not  infrequently  puts  to  shame  the 
dialectically  involved  reasoning  of  scholasticism.'' 

Paracelsus  has  indeed  clearly  expressed  his  opin- 
ion that  theories  should  not  be  permitted  to  dominate 
the  practice  of  the  physician. 

^•^  Ibid.,  II,  p.  35. 


126  PARACELSUS. 

"For  in  experiments  neither  theories  nor  other 
arguments  are  apphcable,  but  they  are  to  be  con- 
sidered as  their  own  expressions.  Therefore  we 
admonish  every  one  who  reads  these,  not  to  oppose 
the  methods  of  experiment  but  according  as  its  own 
power  permits  to  follow  it  out  without  prejudice. 
For  every  experiment  is  like  a  weapon  which  must 
be  used  according  to  its  peculiar  power,  as  a  spear 
to  thrust,  a  club  to  strike — so  also  is  it  with  experi- 
ments ....  To  use  experiments  requires  an  experi- 
enced man  who  is  sure  of  his  thrust  and  stroke  that 
he  may  use  and  direct  it  according  to  its  fashion.''^* 

That  he  endeavored  to  keep  an  open  mind  to- 
ward the  symptoms  of  his  patients,  not  too  much 
governed  by  preconceived  dogmas,  is  also  indicated 
in  his  defense  against  certain  attacks  of  his  oppo- 
nents in  which  they  accuse  him  of  not  at  once  recog- 
nizing symptoms  and  treatment: 

"They  complain  of  me  that  when  I  come  to  a 
patient,  I  do  not  know  instantly  what  the  matter 
is  with  him,  but  that  I  need  time  to  find  out.  It  is 
indeed  true  that  they  pronounce  judgment  imme- 
diately— their  folly  is  to  blame  for  that,  for  in  the 
end  their  first  judgment  is  false,  and  from  day  to 
day  as  time  passes  they  know  less  what  the  trouble 
is  and  hence  betake  themselves  to  lying,  while  I 
from  day  to  day  endeavor  to  arrive  at  the  truth.  For 
obscure  diseases  cannot  be  at  once  recognized  as 
colors  are.  With  colors  we  can  see  what  is  black, 
green,  blue,  etc.     If,  however,  there  were  a  curtain 

1*  Chir.  Bucher,  etc.,  pp.  300f.   "Von  frantzosischen  Blatern,"  etc. 


MEDICAL   SCIENCE  AND   PRACTICE.  12/ 

in  front  of  them  we  could  not  rcognize  them .... 
What  the  eyes  can  see  can  be  judged  quickly,  but 
what  is  hidden  from  the  eyes  it  is  vain  to  grasp  as  if 
it  were  visible.  Take,  for  instance,  the  miner ;  be 
he  as  able,  experienced  and  skilful  as  may  be,  when 
he  sees  for  the  first  time  an  ore,  he  cannot  know 
what  it  contains,  what  it  will  yield,  nor  how  it  is  to 
be  treated,  roasted,  fused,  ignited  or  burned.  He 
must  first  run  tests  and  trials  and  see  whither  these 
lead.  .  .Thus  it  is  with  obscure  and  tedious  diseases, 
that  so  hasty  judgments  cannot  be  made  though  the 
humoral  physicians  do  this.""^^ 

Admitting  the  value  of  the  positive  contributions 
of  Paracelsus  to  medical  knowledge  and  practice, 
the  net  value  of  the  reform  campaign  which  he  in- 
stituted is  variously  estimated  by  historians  of  medi- 
cine. For  it  must  be  remembered  that  Paracelsus 
fought  against  dogmas  intrenched  in  tradition,  by 
dogmas  of  his  own.  To  the  fantastic  theories  of 
the  Greek-Arabian  authorities  he  opposed  many 
equally  fantastic  theories.  That  by  his  assault 
upon  the  absurdities  and  weaknesses  of  the  Galenic 
medicine  of  his  time  he  paved  the  way  for  greater 
hospitality  to  new  and  progressive  ideas  is  unques- 
tionable, but  that  by  this  assault  he  also  did  much 
to  discredit  the  valuable  elements  as  well  as  the 
corruptions  of  ancient  medical  achievements  is  also 
true.  It  is  very  difficult  to  justly  balance  the  pro- 
gressive and  the  reactionary  influences  he  exerted 
upon  the  progress  of  medicine — and  naturally,  there- 
in op.  foL,  I,  262,  "Die  siebente  Defension." 


128  PARACELSUS. 

fore,  authorities  differ  upon  this  question.  Thus  Neu- 
burger^*^  appreciates  the  value  of  the  accompHsh- 
ments  of  Paracelsus,  yet  doubts  that  he  is  to  be 
considered  as  a  reformer  of  medicine  in  the  sense 
that  was  Vesalius  or  Pare,  that  is,  he  laid  no  foun- 
dation-stones of  importance,  and  the  real  value  of 
much  of  his  thought  required  the  later  developments 
of  modern  scientific  thought  for  its  interpretation. 
His  aim  was  to  found  medicine  upon  physiological 
and  biological  foundations,  but  the  method  he  chose 
was  not  the  right  method,  and  his  analogical  rea- 
soning and  fantastic  philosoph)^  of  macrocosm  and 
microcosm  were  not  convincing  and  led  nowhere. 
The  disaffection  and  discontent  with  conditions  in 
medicine  produced  by  his  campaign,  can,  thinks 
Neuburger,  hardly  be  called  a  revolution.  That 
was  to  come  later  through  the  constructive  work 
of  more  scientific  methods. 

In  a  similar  vein  Haser^^  remarks,  ''Scarcely 
ever  has  a  physician  seized  the  problem  of  his  life 
with  purer  enthusiasm,  served  it  with  truer  heart, 
or  with  greater  earnestness  kept  in  view  the  honor 
of  his  calling  than  the  reformer  of  Einsiedeln.  But 
the  aim  of  his  scientific  endeavors  was  a  mistaken 
one  and  no  less  mistaken  was  the  method  by  which 
he  sought  to  attain  it." 

A  recent  writer,  Professor  Hugo  Magnus,^^  pre- 
sents a  more  critical  point  of  view: 

"We  must,  then,  summarize  our  judgment  to 
this  effect,  that  Paracelsus  keenly  felt  the  frightful 

16  Op.  cit,  p.  Z7.  17  Op.  cit.,  p.  105.        is  Op.  cit.,  pp.  11-13. 


MEDICAL   SCIENCE  AND   PRACTICE.  1 29 

corruption  which  medicine  and  the  investigation  of 
nature  suffered  from  the  hands  of  the  scholastics, 
but  that  he  did  not  understand  how  to  penetrate  to 
the  causes  of  this  condition  of  his  science.  Instead 
of  seeking  in  the  scholastic  system  the  root  of  this 
medical  degeneration,  he  believed  that  it  must  be 
found  exclusively  in  the  healing  art  of  the  ancients. 
And  thus  he  sought  to  shatter  in  blind  hatred  all 
that  existed,  without  being  in  position  to  replace  the 
old  theory  he  maligned  by  a  new  and  better  concept 
of  nature  and  medicine.  So  Paracelsus  wore  away 
in  confused  wrestling  his  bodily  and  mental  energy, 
and  lived,  indeed,  as  a  reformer  —  as  a  medical 
superman — in  his  own  imagination,  in  his  own  valu- 
ation, but  not  in  the  recognition  of  his  own  times, 
nor  in  the  judgment  of  posterity. 

''If,  therefore,  I  can  find  no  relationship  between 
the  general  methods  of  medicine  to-day  and  the 
Theophrastic  concept  of  nature,  nevertheless  our 
super-colleague  must  be  considered  in  an  essentially 
limited  respect,  to  be  sure,  as  the  pioneer  in  certain 
modern  points  of  view.  He  was  the  first  to  attempt 
the  consideration  of  the  phenomena  of  organic  life 
in  a  chemical  sense,  and  I  do  not  need  to  emphasize 
that  he  thereby  paved  the  way  to  a  very  powerful 
advance  in  our  science.  In  this  respect  was  Para- 
celsus a  reformer,  here  he  has  pointed  new  paths  in 
the  valuation  of  pathological  phenomena  as  well  as 
in  therapy,  even  if  here  also  he  has  theorized  enough 
and  allowed  his  neo-Platonism  to  play  him  many  a 
trick." 


130  PARACELSUS. 

By  discarding  and  condemning  all  the  ancient 
authorities,  thinks  Magnus,  Paracelsus  assailed  not 
only  the  corrupted  Galenism  of  his  time  but  did 
much  to  discredit  the  positive  achievements  of  the 
Greeks,  and  although  the  original  Greek  authorities 
were  not  the  then  prevailing  texts,  they  were  at  least 
accessible  in  newly  translated  versions,  and  the  good 
in  them  might  have  been  incorporated  and  built  upon 
by  Paracelsus  if  he  had  possessed  the  scientific  point 
of  view.  To  the  extent  of  his  influence  in  this  direc- 
tion Paracelsus  was  therefore  an  opponent  rather 
than  a  promoter  of  the  progress  of  medical  science. 

« 

''Through  his  irrational  theories  he  gave  impulse 
to  all  sorts  of  mistaken  notions  among  his  followers, 
so  that  the  wildest  vagaries  existed  among  the  Para- 
celsists  of  the  succeeding  century." 

The  above  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  trend  of 
modern  critical  judgment  of  Paracelsus  as  a  re- 
former of  medicine. 

However  estimates  may  vary  as  to  the  extent  of 
the  influence  of  Paracelsus  as  a  reformer  of  medi- 
cine, credit  must  certainly  be  given  him  as  a  forceful 
agent  in  the  downfall  of  the  scholastic  medical  sci- 
ence of  his  time.  The  real  reform  in  medical  science, 
its  establishment  upon  a  basis  of  modern  scientific 
method,  was  not  the  work  of  his  century  nor  of  the 
century  to  follow.  Indeed,  it  may  not  be  too  much 
to  say  that  that  great  reform  was  mainly  the  work 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  was  made  possible 
only  through  the  patient  labors  of  many  investi- 


MEDICAL   SCIENCE  AND   PRACTICE.  I3I 

gators  in  the  domains  of  physics,  chemistry,  anatomy 
and  biology. 

If,  however,  we  cannot  claim  for  Paracelsus  the 
unchallenged  place  of  the  reformer  of  medicine,  we 
may  at  least  recognize  in  him  an  earnest,  powerful 
and  prophetic  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness. 


THE  MISSION  AND  ETHICS  OF  THE  PHY- 
SICIAN. 

WERE  we  to  accept  the  estimate  of  the  charac- 
ter of  Paracelsus  which  had  gradually  come 
to  be  accepted  during  the  eighteenth  century — that 
he  was  a  coarse  and  ignorant  charlatan — it  would 
be  a  contradiction  in  terms  to  consider  him  seriously 
in  the  role  of  a  teacher  of  ideals  of  morality  and 
ethics. 

Fortunately,  however,  the  investigations  of  a 
number  of  thorough  students  of  the  life  and  times 
of  Paracelsus  justify  us  in  accepting  a  very  different 
judgment  of  his  character  and  personality. 

Egotistic,  intolerant  and  rude  as  he  often  shows 
himself  to  be,  no  authentic  incidents  have  been  ad- 
duced affecting  his  essential  earnestness,  integrity 
or  morality.  His  former  secretary  and  student 
Oporinus,  in  a  letter  written  long  after  the  death 
of  Paracelsus,  indeed  makes  the  accusation  of  drun- 
kenness against  him,  but  this  testimony  has  been 
discredited  both  on  grounds  of  the  circumstances 
which  brought  out  the  letter  during  the  bitter  anti- 
Paracelsan  contest,  and  of  the  general  character  of 


MISSION  AND  ETHICS  OF  THE  PHYSICIAN.      I33 

the  writer/  Had  there  been  a  soHd  basis  for  the 
charge  it  is  hardly  to  be  beheved  that  greater  use 
of  this  effective  weapon  would  not  have  been  made 
by  his  antagonists  during  his  lifetime.  Schubert 
and  Sudhoff  quote  also  from  a  work  of  J.  Agricola, 
the  statement  of  a  certain  Aegidius  von  der  Wiese, 
a  former  pupil  of  Paracelsus,  in  which  he  says: 
"But  this  is  true  that  Paracelsus  enjoyed  drinking, 
but  on  the  other  hand,  when  he  had  undertaken 
anything  he  scarcely  ate  nor  drank  until  he  had 
completed  it  and  then,  when  he  had  the  time,  he 
became  ordinarily  merry  [gemeiniglich  histig]." 

This  statement  may  well  stand  against  the  simi- 
larly unsupported  statement  of  Oporinus.  The  cus- 
tom of  his  time  and  country  would  indeed  have  con- 
doned a  reasonable  indulgence  and  even  occasional 
excesses  of  that  kind,  though  passages  in  Paracel- 
sus's  works  are  not  few  where  he  himself  condemns 
drunkenness,  and  there  is  no  positive  evidence  that 
his  own  life  was  inconsistent  with  such  convictions. 

Ignorance  also  cannot  be  charged  against  him. 
This  charge  seems  to  have  been  based  largely  upon 
the  fact  that  he  wrote  and  lectured  in  German  rather 
than  in  Latin.  But  those  who  lived  in  his  time  and 
country  doubtless  well  knew  that  his  reasons  for  so 
doing  were  much  the  same  that  animated  Luther 
who  had  set  him  the  example.  Moreover,  his  use 
of  Latin  in  his  own  works,  and  his  many  allusions 
to  Greek  and  Latin  authors  make  it  evident  that  he 
commanded  the  language  in  which  they  were  writ- 

^  Cf .  Schubert  and  Sudhoff,  Paracelsusforschungen,  II,  pp.  79ff 


1 34  PARACELSUS. 

ten  and  possessed  an  extensive  familiarity  with 
their  doctrines,  though  perhaps  not  a  scholarly  in- 
terest in  their  writings. 

Nevertheless,  whatever  may  have  been  his  short- 
comings and  limitations,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
the  earnestness  or  sincerity  of  his  efforts  to  raise 
the  standards  of  medical  ethics,  nor  the  essential 
piety  of  his  own  convictions. 

We  may,  therefore,  be  justified  in  accepting  the 
consistently  and  constantly  reiterated  ideals  of  the 
mission  of  medicine,  and  of  the  ethical  standards 
of  the  medical  practitioner  as  the  sincere  utterances 
of  a  devoted  missionary. 

The  condition  of  medical  ethics  at  the  time,  if 
we  may  judge  from  such  expressions  as  have  al- 
ready been  quoted  from  Erasmus,  Agrippa  and 
Ramus,  and  as  the  history  of  medicine  affords  ample 
confirmation,  was  such  as  to  justify  the  criticisms 
of  Paracelsus  and  warrant  his  efforts  at  reform 
That  the  persecution  and  contempt  of  the  profession 
added  an  element  of  personal  resentment  and  bitter- 
ness to  his  campaign  is  also  manifest. 

The  character  of  the  appeal  of  Paracelsus  and  its 
probable  influence  upon  such  medical  students  as 
were  not  too  strongly  prejudiced  against  him — and 
particularly  upon  the  lay  public,  already,  it  would 
seem,  somewhat  suspicious  of  the  conventional  scho- 
lastic physician — may  best  be  understood  from  his 
own  utterances. 

"Ye  physicians,  of  what  use  to  us  is  the  name, 
the  title,  the  university,  if  we  possess  not  the  knowl- 


MISSION  AND  ETHICS  OF  THE  PHYSICIAN.      I35 

edge  [of  medicine]  ?  Knowledge  makes  the  physi- 
cian, not  the  name  or  the  school.  What  is  it  for 
us  if  we  appear  great  and  make  great  display,  if  we 
have  not  the  knowledge  ?  Of  what  use  that  we  are 
considered  great  by  lords,  cities  or  countries — that 
we  are  given  dignities  and  honors,  and  when  the 
time  of  need  arises,  when  we  should  be  able  worthily 
to  repay  the  honors  bestowed  and  we  have  not  the 
knowledge?  Whom  do  honors,  the  doctor's  cloak 
and  ring  really  adorn  but  those  who  deserve  them 
by  reason  of  their  knowledge?  Knowledge  does 
not  grow  in  our  heads,  if  we  do  not  know  the  virtues 
contained  in  the  herbs.  The  garden  of  knowledge 
is  like  a  garden  of  trees;  the  arts  are  founded  in 
experience  and  taught  by  nature.  If  the  trees  in  the 
garden  are  mutilated  dow^n  to  the  trunk,  of  what  use 
is  the  tree  ?  However  tall  and  handsome  it  may  be, 
if  it  lacks  branches  no  fruits  can  come  of  it.  And 
like  a  tree  mutilated  to  the  trunk  are  those  physi- 
cians who  are  grounded  only  in  human  fantasies, 
thc}^  are  mutilated  and  yield  no  fruits — only  the 
trunk  stands ....  Or  to  take  another  simile,  as  when 
a  trooper  cuts  off  the  tail  of  a  Prankish  or  Swabian 
horse  to  adorn  his  helmet  so  that  he  may  gratify 
his  vanity.  But  when  summer  comes  the  horse  has 
nothing  to  protect  him  from  the  flies  and  has  a 
wretched  reward  for  having  contributed  to  the 
trooper's  splendor.  So  with  physicians:  if  we  give 
ourselves  over  to  vanity  and  show,  it  happens  to 
us  as  to  the  Swabian  horse,  when  diseases  appear 
we.  have  no  tails  to  protect  us  and  must  be  vexed 


136  PARACELSUS. 

by  the  diseases  as  the  horse  by  the  gadflies.  For 
our  vanity  and  splendor,  our  paternosters,  our  rings 
and  name  and  title  are  only  the  stump  remaining  on 
the  horse's  rump  and  the  tail  which  was  so  useful 
a  protection  is  no  longer  there.  .  .  .1  wish  to  ad- 
monish all  physicians  that  they  scrutinize,  not  me 
to  whom  they  are  hostile,  but  themselves  and  then 
they  may  judge  me  accordingly.  I  was  grown  in 
your  garden  and  was  transplanted  from  it  into  an- 
other. That  is,  I  was  trained  in  that  garden  where 
trees  are  mutilated  and  was  no  slight  ornament  to 
the  university.  But  when  the  Archeites  saw  that 
that  growth  would  lead  me  into  vanity  and  show, 
it  was  brought  about  that  I  should  be  transplanted 
and  should  be  planted  in  another  garden.  For  just 
as  a  good  fruit-tree  is  dug  up  and  a  linden  planted 
in  its  place,  so  it  takes  place  there  [in  the  univer- 
sities]. For  there  the  physician's  fruitfulness  is 
taken  away  from  him,  and  he  is  made  into  a  feast 
for  the  eyes  like  the  linden-tree,  but  his  fruits  dis- 
appear. This  transplanting  was  brought  about  for 
this  reason,  that  after  so  much  mutilation  I  should 
be  planted  in  another  garden,  that  is,  that  I  should 
enter  into  the  paths  of  experience  and  avoid  that 
mutilation."^ 

Evidently  his  attacks  upon  the  practitioners  of 
his  day  brought  forth  from  his  opponents  accusa- 
tions of  lack  of  professional  courtesy,  for  he  feels 
himself  called  upon  to  defend  himself  against  this 
charge. 

2  Chir.  Biicher,  etc.,  p.  309,  "Spitalbuch,"  Preface. 


MISSION  AND  ETHICS  OF  THE  PHYSICIAN.      I37 

"It  should  not  appear  strange  to  any  one  that 
I  cannot  praise  selfishness  in  medicine,  because  I 
know  how  harmful  it  is,  so  that  the  art  of  medicine 
has  become  falsified  by  it  and  has  been  led  astray 
into  a  show  and  a  bargaining,  so  that  nothing  can 
take  place  without  falseness  which  leads  to  corrup- 
tion in  all  things.  The  physician  must  not  be  founded 
on  selfishness  but  in  love.  .  .  .1,  for  my  part,  am 
ashamed  of  medicine  that  it  has  so  fallen  into  de- 
ception. There  is  no  abandoned  hangman,  bawdy- 
house  keeper,  or  dog-killer  that  will  not  sell  his 
human  or  dog's  fat  for  money  and  claim  to  cure  all 
diseases  with  it,  and  that  even  when  his  conscience 
tells  him  that  the  treatment  of  one  disease  only  is 
permitted  to  him.  But  because  of  their  greed  they 
take  everything  that  comes  their  way.  Therefore 
there  have  come  into  medicine  all  the  lazy  and  wicked 
vagabonds,  and  they  sell  their  remedies  whether  they 
suit  the  case  or  not.  Whoever  gets  money  in  his 
purse  has  the  reputation  of  being  a  good  physician. 
.  .  .  .They  do  not  care  that  it  has  come  to  them  un- 
deserved, only  so  that  it  is  there. 

"It  is  also  a  doctor's  custom  wherever  the  law 
permits  it — whether  rightly  or  not  I  do  not  know — ■ 
that  a  visit  is  worth  a  gulden  whether  earned  or  not. 
....  To  have  pity  for  another  and  to  fulfil  the  law  of 
love  will  not  become  a  custom  or  use:  they  wish  to 
have  no  law  any  more  but  to  take — take,  whether  it 
is  right  or  wrong.  So  they  deck  themselves  with 
rings  and  chains  of  gold ;  so  they  go  about  in  silken 
clothing  and  proclaim  to  all  the  world  their  open 


138  PARACELSUS. 

disgrace,  which  they  consider  as  an  honor  and  as 
proper  for  a  physician ;  so  ornamented  Hke  a  picture 
they  strut  about — it  is  an  abomination  in  the  sight 
of  God ....  Medicine  is  an  art  which  should  be  em- 
ployed with  great  conscientiousness  and  great  ex- 
perience and  in  the  great  fear  of  God,  for  he  who 
does  not  fear  God  he  murders  and  steals  continually, 
and  he  who  has  no  conscience  has  also  no  shame  in 
him ....  I  trust  I  have  defended  myself  from  having 
anything  to  do  with  the  pseudo-medici,  or  from 
doing  anything  to  please  them :  I  would  rather  speed 
the  axe  to  be  laid  at  that  tree.  If  it  depended  on 
me  it  would  not  be  long  delayed.''^ 

In  a  similar  vein  he  elsewhere  says: 

'They  have  brought  things  to  such  a  pass  that 
all  men  flee  from  medicine  and  hold  it  all  as  knaving 
and  swindling.  They  have  so  deceived  people  with 
their  arts  that  a  common  peasant  or  a  Jew  com- 
mands more  credence  than  they.  And,  indeed,  these 
can  do  more  than  the  doctors.  Is  it  not  a  crime  and 
a  shame  when  a  city  physician  [Stadfar^t]  is  ap- 
pointed in  a  city,  and  the  sick  flee  from  him  because 
he  cannot  help  them  and  must  let  them  lie;  and 
others  who  have  not  studied  must  assist  them?"* 

His  exalted  ideal  of  the  mission  of  medical  sci- 
ence and  of  the  true  physician  finds  frequent  utter- 
ance throughout  his  writings,  as  the  following  ex- 
amples may  illustrate: 

"For  God  wills  that  man  be  truthful  and  not  a 

3  op.  fol,  I,  259-261,  "Die  fiinfte  Defension." 

4  Op.  fol,  I,  61,  'Taramirum." 


MISSION  AND  ETHICS  OF  THE  PHYSICIAN.      I39 

doubter  and  liar ;  He  has  created  truth  and  not  Hes, 
and  ordained  and  estabhshed  the  physician  in  the 
truth  and  not  in  hes.  The  truth  is  then  his  integrity. 
Such  is  the  physician's  integrity  that  he  shall  be  as 
steadfast  and  as  truthful  as  the  Apostles  of  Christ, 
for  in  God's  sight  he  is  not  less."^^ 

"Now  take  note,  that  among  all  the  arts  and 
professions  of  mankind  God  most  loves  the  phy- 
sician and  He  commands  and  ordains  him.  There- 
fore, as  the  physician  is  so  preferred  and  distin- 
guished by  God  ,  he  must  be  no  hypocrite  [Larven- 
mann],  no  old  wife,  no  executioner,  no  liar,  no  tri- 
fler,  but  a  real  man  must  he  be."^ 

"As  now  it  is  the  physician  alone  who  can  most 
highly  prize  and  praise  God,  he  must  have  the  great- 
est knowledge.  And  why?  Who  is  it  except  the 
physician  that  can  know  man,  w^hat  he  is,  and  how 
great  God  has  made  him  ?  H^  can  make  known  the 
works  of  God,  how  noble  the  universe  is,  and  how 
much  nobler  is  man,  and  how  one  proceeds  and  is 
born  from  the  other  [i.  e.,  the  macrocosm  and  micro- 
cosm]. He  who  does  not  know  this  must  not  boast 
himself  a  physician."'^ 

His  ideals  of  service  of  the  physician  toward  the 
poor  and  needy  may  be  illustrated  by  the  following 
extract  from  the  Preface  to  his  Hospital-Book. 

"Of  what  use  is  it  if  I  write  much  about  the  sick 
and  the  poor  and  of  how  their  health  is  to  be  secured 

^  Op.  fol,  I,  227,  "Paragranum." 

6  Ibid.,  I,  226. 

■^  Op.  fol,  I,  81,  "Paramirum." 


140  PARACELSUS. 

and  do  not  also  admonish  the  rich?  For  no  good 
can  happen  to  the  poor  without  the  rich.  Both  are 
bound  together  as  with  a  chain,  and  as  Httle  may 
any  chain  suffer  a  break  as  the  chain  which  binds 
together  the  rich  and  the  poor.  Learn,  ye  rich,  to 
recognize  these  chains.  For  if  you  break  your  Hnk, 
ye  not  only  break  the  chain  but  like  the  broken  link 
ye  will  be  cast  aside.  Why,  then,  do  you  try  to 
make  yourselves  free  from  the  poor  and  to  shut  your 
help  from  them?  Just  as  if  you  should  take  some 
links  from  a  chain  and  make  it  too  short,  so,  without 
the  poor,  would  your  path  be  too  short  to  reach  to 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  you  would  not  attain 
the  goal  for  which  the  chain  was  given  you.  Learn 
then,  both  rich  and  poor,  that  all  your  diseases  on 
earth  lie  in  one  single  hospital  and  that  is  the  hos- 
pital of  God. . . . 

''Do  not  let  yourselves  be  discouraged  because 
with  many  of  the  sick,  neither  help  nor  faith,  nor  art, 
nor  benevolence,  nor  anything  will  help  them;  it  is 
so  ordained  for  them  for  reasons  elsewhere  suffi- 
ciently described.  .  .  .Forget  not  your  truth,  despair 
not  and  be  not  discouraged,  but  continue  in  love. 
Despise  not  your  art  but  make  yourself  skilled  in 
it,  that  you  may  not  fail  in  the  truth  and  under- 
standing of  medicine,  but  that  any  failure  may  lie 
with  nature.  Be  gentle  and  merciful  and  judge  of 
your  charities  as  to  what  aim,  use  and  fruitfulness 
they  may  arrive,  and  trust  nothing  to  unreason."^ 

Similar    exhortations    and    expressions    of    his 

^  Chir.  Bucher,  etc.,  pp.  311f,  "Spitalbuch." 


MISSION  AND  ETHICS  OF  THE  PHYSICIAN.      I4I 

strong  convictions  upon  the  mission  of  the  true  phy- 
sician are  scattered  numerously  through  nearly  all 
his  writings.  Evidently  the  purification  of  medical 
ethics  and  practice  was  one  of  the  dominant  aims  of- 
his  reform  campaign. 


PARACELSUS  AS  A  THEOLOGICAL 
WRITER. 

UNTIL  recently  little  notice  has  been  taken  of 
the  very  considerable  activity  of  Paracelsus 
as  a  thinker  and  writer  on  theology.  From  the  tenor 
of  much  that  has  been  already  cited  it  might  be  in- 
ferred that  matters  of  theology  could  not  be  in- 
different to  him.  And  indeed  it  was  known  from 
very  early  records  that  Paracelsus  had  written  works 
of  this  character.  Even  the  inventory  of  his  per- 
sonal effects  recorded  at  Salzburg  after  his  death 
makes  mention  of  a  collection  of  theological  manu- 
scripts presumably  written  by  himself.  So  also 
Conrad  Gesner  in  his  Bibliotheca  Universalis  (1545) 
says  of  Paracelsus  that  he  composed  and  dedicated 
to  the  Abbot  of  St.  Gall,  "I  know  not  what  theolog- 
ical works  which  I  believe  not  to  have  been  pub- 
lished."^ 

Moreover  there  exists  on  record  a  receipt  signed 
by  Johannes  Huser  at  Neuburg,  October  10,  1594, 
for  a  collection  of  autograph  manuscripts  by  Para- 
celsus upon  theological  subjects.  The  collection  in- 
cludes some  twenty-five  titles  of  works.    Other  lists 

"^  Raymund    Netzhammer,    Theophrastus    Paracelsus,    Einsiedeln, 
1901,  p.  53. 


PARACELSUS  AS  A  THEOLOGICAL  WRITER.   I43 

of  his  theological  writings  are  in  existence  dating 
from  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  In 
1618  a  publisher,  Johann  Staricius,  issued  a  volume 
containing  a  few  of  these  theological  essays.  In  his 
Preface  the  editor  asserts  that  he  knows  a  place 
where  nearly  a  cart-load  of  these  theological  manu- 
scripts may  be  found." 

Of  all  these  manuscripts  not  one  is  now  known 
to  exist  as  autograph,  though  Sudhoff's  search 
through  the  libraries  of  Europe  has  brought  to 
light  collections  of  copies  in  the  libraries  at  Leyden, 
Gorlitz  and  elsewhere,  some  of  these  copies  dating 
as  early  as  1564  to  1567,  and  many  of  them  bearing 
titles  included  in  the  early  list  of  autograph  manu- 
scripts as  receipted  for  by  Huser,  or  in  other  early 
lists.' 

The  manuscripts  borrowed  by  Huser  from  the 
library  at  Neuburg  were  manifestly  intended  to 
be  used  in  the  published  collection  of  his  works. 
That  they  were  not  so  used  is  easily  explained  by 
the  tenor  of  the  contents  of  such  as  have  been  in 
part  printed  or  abstracted  by  Sudhoff  in  the  second 
volume  of  his  Versuch.  For  they  are  very  out- 
spoken and  indeed  frankly  heretical  in  their  criti- 
cisms of  many  of  the  institutions  and  observances 
of  the  Roman  Church.  Huser  was  himself  a  Roman 
Catholic,  and  the  publication  of  the  works  of  Para- 
celsus by  Huser  was  undertaken  under  the  patron- 

.    2  Cf.  Netzhammer,  op.  cit.,  p.  127. 

^  For  statements  as  to  the  evidence   of  authenticity  of  many  of 
these  manuscripts,  cf.  Sudhoff,  Versuch,  etc.,  II,  Introduction. 


144  PARACELSUS. 

age  and  with  the  support  of  the  Archbishop  of  Co 
logne.  Though  Paracelsus  claimed  allegiance  to 
the  Catholic  Church  and  died  and  was  buried  at 
Salzburg  as  a  Catholic,  yet  his  views  were  so  radical 
and  so  severely  critical  of  many  of  the  essential 
doctrines  of  the  Church,  that  their  publication  could 
hardly  have  been  possible  under  such  support  and 
supervision.  Indeed,  it  is  evident  that  any  wide 
circulation  of  his  writings  would  have  brought  upon 
him  the  severest  discipline  of  the  Church.  Even 
the  Lutheran  clerical  party  would  have  had  little 
sympathy  with  his  point  of  view.  It  is  quite  prob- 
able that  Paracelsus  himself  made  no  effort  to  print 
them  but  rather  avoided  their  publication,  prefer- 
ring merely  to  place  them  in  the  hands  of  congenial 
thinkers  or  to  leave  them  for  posterity. 

It  is  certain  that  the  revolt  of  his  contemporary 
Luther,  and  his  countryman  Zwingli  as  well  as  the 
critical  spirit  of  Erasmus  exercised  a  great  influence 
upon  Paracelsus — predisposed  by  natural  tempera- 
ment to  independent  and  free  thinking  and  criticism 
of  authority. 

It  should  be  kept  in  mind  also  that  severe  criti- 
cism of  the  orthodox  Church,  its  observances  and 
corruption  was  quite  prevalent  even  before  the 
time  of  the  Protestant  Reformation.  In  Italy  Ma- 
chiavelli  writing  about  1500  thus  freely  criticizes 
the  corruption  of  the  Church :  "Should  we  send  the 
Curia  to  Switzerland,  the  most  religious  and  martial 
of  countries,  that  experiment  would  prove  that  no 
piety  nor  warrior's  strength  could  .resist  the  papal 


PARACELSUS  AS  A  THEOLOGICAL  WRITER.       1 45 

corruption  and  intrigue.  .  .  .  The  peoples  nearest 
Rome  have  least  religion.  .  .  .We  Italians  have  to 
thank  the  Church  and  the  priests  that  we  have  be- 
come irreligious  and  corrupt."* 

So  also  Savonarola,  the  great  Dominican  monk, 
writing  in  1493,  the  year  of  the  birth  of  Paracelsus: 
"Go  to  Rome  and  throughout  all  Christendom  in  the 
houses  of  the  great  prelates  and  the  great  lords,  they 
busy  themselves  with  nothing  but  poetry  and  rhet- 
oric. Go  and  see,  you  will  find  them  with  humanistic 
books  in  their  hands ;  it  will  appear  as  if  they  knew 
how  to  guide  souls  by  Virgil,  Horace  and  Cicero. 
With  Aristotle,  Plato,  Virgil  and  Petrarch  they 
feed  their  ears  and  do  not  trouble  themselves  about 
the  salvation  of  souls.  Why  do  they  not  teach  in- 
stead of  so  many  books,  that  one  in  which  is  contained 
the  law  and  the  life."  The  prelates,  said  Savona- 
rola, are  sunk  in  ambition,  shamelessness  and  lux- 
ury, and  the  princes — "their  palaces  and  courts  are 
the  refuge  of  all  beasts  and  monsters  of  the  earth, 
asylums  for  all  rascals  and  criminals.  These  stream 
thither  because  they  find  there  opportunity  and  in- 
citement to  give  free  rein  to  all  their  boundless 
desires  and  evil  passions ....  and  what  is  worse, 
there  also  may  be  seen  churchmen  who  join  in  the 
same  accord."^ 

Whatever  stimulus  may  have  been  given  to  the 
unorthodox  theology  of  Paracelsus  by  the  Protes- 

*  W.  Dilthey,  Archiv  fur  Geschichte  der  Philosophie,  IV,  pp.  636f. 

^  Cf.  Paulsen,  Geschichte  des  gelehrten  Unterrichfs.  2d  ed.,  Leip- 
sic,  1896-97,  I,  pp.  lOf. 


146  PARACELSUS. 

tant  Reformation,  it  is  evident  that  he  was  no  less 
critical  and  unsympathetic  toward  the  Lutheran 
interpretation  than  toward  the  Catholic.  This  is 
evidenced  by  many  passages  in  his  writings  wherein 
he  refers  to  the  Protestant  leaders  of  his  day  as 
false  prophets,  etc. 

'Those  who  stand  with  the  Pope  consider  him  a 
living  saint,  those  who  stand  with  the  Arian*^  also 
hold  him  a  righteous  man,  those  who  hold  with 
Zwingli  likewise  consider  him  a  righteous  man, 
those  who  stand  with  Luther  hold  him  a  true 
prophet.  Thus  the  people  are  deceived.  Every 
fool  praises  his  own  motley.  He  who  depends  on 
the  Pope  rests  on  the  sand,  he  who  depends  on 
Zwingli  depends  on  hollow  ground,  he  who  depends 
upon  Luther  depends  on  a  reed.  They  all  deem 
themselves  each  above  the  other,  and  denounce  one 
another  as  Antichrists,  heathens  and  heretics,  and 
are  but  four  pairs  of  breeches  from  one  cloth.  It 
is  with  them  as  with  a  tree  that  has  been  twice 
grafted  and  bears  white  and  yellow  pears.  Who- 
ever opposes  them  and  speaks  the  truth,  he  must 
die.  How  many  thousands  have  they  strang'led  and 
caused  to  be  strangled  in  recent  years. "^ 

''They  pray  in  the  temples — but  their  prayer  is 
not  acceptable  to  God,  for  it  means  nothing,  and 
they — altogether,  Papists,  Lutherans,  Anabaptists, 
Zwinglians  —  they  all  boast  that  they  are  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  that  thc}^  are  founded  on  the  Gospel. 

^  Here  doubtless  denoting  any  great  heretic. 
■^  Sudhoff,  Versuch,  etc.,  II,  p.  411. 


PARACELSUS  AS  A  THEOLOGICAL  WRITER.       I47 

Therefore  they  cry  1  am  right,  the  right  is  with 
me,  I  declare  the  word  of  God,  here  is  Christ  and 
His  word  as  I  tell  it  you — follow  me,  I  am  he  who 
brings  you  the  Gospel.'  See  what  an  abomination 
among  Pharisees  this  is.''^ 

More  specifically  may  be  judged  the  extent  of 
his  departure  from  the  doctrines  of  his  own  Church 
in  the  following: 

"It  is  vain — the  daily  churchgoing  and  all  the 
genuflection,  bowing  and  observances  of  church 
rules  by  clergy  and  the  laity — none  excepted — all 
a  vain  work  with  no  fruits,  the  will  and  service 
of  the  Devil,  opposed  to  Christ  and  the  Holy  Trinity. 
The  reasons?  The  Church  is  called  in  Latin  Catho- 
lica  and  is  the  spirit  of  all  true  behevers,  and  their 
coming  together  is  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  These  are 
all  in  the  faith,  that  is  in  the  Mes  catholica,  and  it 
has  no  location.    But  Ecclesia  is  a  walled  structure." 

Continuing,  he  condemns  public  prayers  in  the 
churches,  church-festivals  ("a  dance  of  devils")  — 
"God  wishes  a  humble  and  contrite  heart  and  no 
devilish  holiday  observances,  offerings  or  displays." 
Fasting  in  the  "walled  churches"  is  an  invention  of 
the  Devil.  The  giving  of  alms  in  the  churches  "does 
not  serve  toward  eternal  blessedness,"  and  the  giv- 
ing of  alms  in  the  Catholic  churches  comes  only 
from  credulity  and  from  no  love  from  the  neighbor 
nor  for  the  neighbor.  Pilgrimages,  dispensations, 
"running  to  the  saints"  are  all  in  vain  and  have  no 
merit.    The  monastic  orders,  the  religious  orders  of 

^  Schubert  and  Sudhoff,  Paracelsusforschungen,  II,  p.  153. 


148  PARACELSUS. 

knighthood  and  the  hke  are  inventions  of  the  Devil 
and  maintained  in  his  honor.  Spreading  the  faith 
by  the  sword  is  from  the  Devil. 

''Who  can  presume  to  consecrate  and  bless  the 
earth.  It  is  God's  earth,  blessed  to  bring  forth  fruit ; 
the  water  is  blessed  by  God  to  quench  thirst,  to  breed 
fish,  to  water  the  earth,  not  to  sprinkle  to  banish  the 
Devil  as  holy  water/'® 

Similar  points  of  view  are  found  expressed  in 
his  printed  works  though  naturally  with  less  of  de- 
tail in  his  criticism. 

Thus  from  the  Paramirum :  ''God  will  only  have 
the  heart,  not  ceremonies ....  For  every  man  is  with 
God  a  neighbor  and  has  full  power  to  take  up  his 
affairs  with  God.  But  if  a  man  gives  this  power  out 
of  his  hands  and  does  not  keep  what  God  has  given 
him,  but  surrenders  it  to  another  and  seeks  it  again 
from  that  other,  then  he  falls  into  ceremonies  and 
depends  upon  despair.  For  every  ceremony  is  the 
way  of  despair.  .  .  .For  if  we  have  anything  to  re- 
ceive from  God  it  is  our  hearts  he  sees  and  not  the 
ceremonies.  If  he  has  given  us  anything,  he  does 
not  wish  that  we  should  employ  it  in  ceremonies 
but  in  our  work.  For  he  gives  it  for  no  other  pur- 
pose but  that  we  should  love  God  with  all  our  heart 
and  our  might,  and  soul,  and  that  we  should  help 
our  neighbor.  If  that  which  he  has  given  us  helps 
toward  that,  all  ceremonies  will  be  forgotten. 


>>10 


9  "De  septem  punctis  Idolatriae  Christianae,"  quoted  by  Sudhoff, 
Versuch,  etc.,  II,  pp.  338ff. 

1*^  Op.  fol,  I,  114-115,  "Liber  de  origine  morboriim  invisibilium." 


PARACELSUS  AS  A  THEOLOGICAL  WRITER.       I49 

That  such  expressions  as  the  above  are  not  to 
be  harmonized  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  to 
which  he  claimed  allegiance  would  appear  obvious. 
The  Rev.  Raymund  Netzhammer  of  the  Benedictine 
order,  one  of  the  recent  biographers  of  Paracelsus, 
thus  expresses  himself  upon  this  point:" 

"Far  more  in  the  domain  of  theology  than  even  in 
medicine,  does  Paracelsus,  who  sometimes  calls  him- 
self Doctor,  of  Sacred  Scripture,  seem  to  recognize 
no  authority,  but  to  consider  his  own  thinking  and 
philosophizing  as  authoritative  for  him.  That  with 
this  principle  of  free  investigation,  denying  every 
authority,  even  that  of  the  Church,  he  departed  from 
the  foundations  of  Catholic  doctrine  every  well- 
informed  person  knows.  But  not  only  by  this  prin- 
ciple as  such,  but  still  more  through  its  practical 
development  did  he  separate  himself  from  the  faith 
of  his  fathers :  he  combated  the  hierarchical  estab- 
lishment of  the  Church,  the  power  of  the  keys,  its 
monastic  orders,  its  ceremonies,  its  public  prayers 
and  devotions.  He  rejected  preaching  among  Chris- 
tians, who  should  teach  themselves  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  banished  the  apostles  and  preachers  to 
the  heathen.  ..  .It  must,  however,  not.be  denied, 
but  on  the  contrary  emphasized  that  Theophrastus 
possessed  a  very  high,  though  unfortunately  too 
mystical  a  concept  of  many  doctrines  and  sacra- 
ments, as  for  instance  of  hereditary  sin,  of  baptism 
with  its  inextinguishable  symbols,  and  notably  also 
of  the  communion.     Baptism  and  communion  are 

11  Op.  cit.,  pp.  1281 


150  PARACELSUS. 

for  him  the  two  principal  roads  which  lead  to 
Heaven." 

The  question  as  to  his  orthodoxy  has  been 
viewed  differently  by  his  biographers.  His  editor 
Huser  mildly  defends  his  Catholicism.  ''Some  are 
inclined  to  hold  him  in  suspicion  on  account  of  his 
religion,  because  in  various  places  he  speaks  in  op- 
position to  certain  abuses:  in  my  opinion  this  is 
unjust,  for,  as  concerns  his  faith,  it  is  well  known 
that  he  did  not  separate  from  the  holy  Catholic 
and  Roman  Church,  but  remained  in  obedience  to 
it,  as  the  Archbishopric  and  City  of  Salzburg  can 
bear  witness,  where  he  died  in  the  year  1541^  a 
Catholic  and  Christian,  and  was  honorably  in- 
terred." {Op.  fol,  Preface.) 

Schubert  and  Sudhoff  summarize  the  results  of 
their  studies  into  the  life  and  character  of  Paracel- 
sus thus : 

'Tf  we  consider  his  attitude  toward  the  religious 
parties  of  the  time,  we  may  perhaps  find  that  in  the 
years  before  1531  he  felt  some  inclination  toward 
the  Reformation  of  Luther  and  Zwingli,  perhaps 
only  in  so  far  as  he  presumed  in  those  who  had 
broken  in  matters  of  faith  with  ancient  authorities,  a 
greater  sympathy  also  with  his  reform  ideas  in  the 
domain  of  medicine  and  natural  science ....  Later — 
after  the  year  1531 — there  is  no  further  talk  of 
sparing  the  Protestants.  On  the  contrary,  if  he  also 
combated  the  Roman  hierarchy,  the  external  forms 
of  worship  and  other  ceremonies,  he  yet  rejects  all 


PARACELSUS  AS  A  THEOLOGICAL  WRITER.       I5I 

dissenting  religious  parties  as  'sects/  almost  even 
more  violently/'^^ 

Though  none  of  the  theological  papers  of  Para- 
celsus were  published  during  his  life,  so  far  as  is 
known,  yet  his  views  were  more  or  less  known,  either 
from  manuscript  copies,  or  from  his  free  oral  ex- 
pressions, and  evidently  brought  upon  him  the  dis- 
pleasure and  disapproval  of  Catholic  authorities. 
Evidence  as  to  this  appears  in  a  manuscript  among 
the  collection  examined  by  Sudhoff  and  published 
in  large  part  in  his  volume  on  the  manuscripts  of 
Paracelsus.  The  extract  translated  below  is  so  emi- 
nently characteristic  of  Paracelsus's  point  of  view 
in  theological  matters  and  so  well  illustrates  his 
relation  at  the  time  to  the  orthodox  theology,  that 
it  forms  one  of  the  most  interesting  expressions  of 
his  spiritual  experience. 

"Your  daily  disputations  and  sharp  attacks  upon 
me  on  account  of  my  truth-speaking,  namely,  that  I 
have  sometimes  and  several  times  in  taverns,  inns 
and  roadhouses  spoken  against  useless  churchgoing. 
luxurious  festivals,  vain  praying  and  fasting,  giving 
of  alms,  offerings,  tithes,.  .  .  .confession,  partaking 
of  the  sacrament,  and  all  other  priestly  rules  and  ob- 
servances, and  have  accused  me  of  drunkenness  on 
account  of  this,  because  this  has  taken  place  in  the 
taverns,  and  the  taverns  are  held  to  be  inappropriate 
places  for  the  truth — and  that  you  call  me  a  corner- 
preacher  : — AA^hy  do  you  do  this  to  me  at  this  time, 

12  Schubert  and  Sudhoff,  op.  cit.,  II,  pp.  152f. 


152  PARACELSUS. 

when  you  were  silent  and  well  pleased  when  in  the 
taverns  I  advised  people  to  give  offerings  to  you  and 
to  follow  you  and  not  to  speak  against  you?  If  that 
was  proper  in  the  inns  and  was-  of  service  to  you, 
then  let  it  please  you  now  that  the  truth  is  spoken 
in  the  inns.  For  there  in  the  inns  I  was  a  believer 
in  you,  but  now  I  am  a  believer  in  Christ  and  no 
longer  in  you.  And  if  I  came  into  the  inns  with  you, 
then  I  would  say  to  these  same  people,  'Guard  your- 
selves against  false  prophets  and  deceivers  who  are 
sent  by  the  Devil.'  I  would  never  again  speak  of 
giving  to  you,  but  of  taking  away  from  you,  the 
usurped  power  which  you  have  long  exercised 
through  the  Devil's  power ....  Also  you  say  of  me 
that  I  have  just  sense  enough  to  reason  with  peas- 
ants ....  You  say  I  should  go  amongst  the  doctors 
at  Louvain,  Paris,  Vienna,  Ingolstadt,  Cologne, 
where  I  should  have  real  persons  under  my  eyes, 
not  peasants,  not  tradesmen,  but  masters  of  theol- 
ogy. Know  then  my  answer  to  this:  to  those  will 
come  their  own  equals.  If  it  be  not  I,  it  will  be  an- 
other, but  my  teaching  and  my  witnessing  for  Christ 
will  come  forth  and  overcome  them.  Christ  never 
came  to  Rome,  yet  Rome  is  His  vicar ;  St.  Peter 
never  came  to  Cologne,  yet  he  is  her  patron  saint, 
nnd  if  in  the  end  I  do  not  come  that  is  not  my  fault. 
For  the  teaching  is  not  mine,  it  is  from  Christ.  He 
will  send  a  Netherlands  messenger  if  I  cannot  speak 
the  language,  and  to  those  of  Vienna  and  Ingolstadt 
lie  will  send  their  countrymen,  and  the  truth  will 
be  born  amongst  them  and  through  them  will  come 


PARACELSUS  AS  A  THEOLOGICAL  WRITER.       1 53 

to  light  and  not  through  me.  And  when  I  am  dead 
the  doctrine  will  live  on,  for  it  is  of  Christ,  who 
dieth  not.  And  if  I  were  at  Louvain  and  at  Paris 
it  is  not  me  they  would  punish — upon  which  you 
count — they  would  but  punish  Christ  and  not  me. 
Yet  I  believe  that  my  speaking  to-day  will  be  heard 
by  them  as  well  as  if  I  had  spoken  in  their  presence. 
For  Christ  does  not  let  his  word  be  lost  at  any  time. 
Nor  does  he  let  it  lie  hidden,  it  must  go  forward.  It 
is  not  for  one  alone,  it  must  be  spread  abroad. 
Everything  must  be  opened  to  it. 

''You  complain  much  and  loudly  that  I  have 
made  the  peasants  contumacious,  so  that  they  never 
make  offerings  and  care  little  for  you  or  not  at  all. 
Consider;  if  my  speech  were  from  the  Devil,  they 
would  follow  you  and  not  me.  But  as  they  follow 
me  and  not  you  believe  no  other  than  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  in  them  which  teaches  them  to  recognize 
your  character,  trickery  and  great  falsehoods.  For 
I  have  not  invented  anything  myself — what  I  have 
said  that  is  from  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  is  the  Gospel 
....  and  has  been  the  Gospel  from  the  time  of  Christ 
till  this  day.  But  your  trickery  is  more  ancient — 
from  Cain  and  from  the  old  hypocrites  and  bishops. 
The  new  [Gospel]  is  true,  the  old,  false.  The  new 
condemns  the  old,  not  the  old  the  new.  Were  the 
Old  Testament  from  which  you  take  all  your  decep- 
tions fully  good  and  true,  Christ  would  not  have  re- 
newed it  again.' 


}}13 


13  "De  septem  punctis  Idolatriae  Christianae,"  quoted  by  Sudhoff, 
Versuch,  etc.,  II,  pp.  2>?)2)^. 


154  PARACELSUS. 

The  doctrines  of  theology  which  Paracelsus  ac- 
cepted appear  not  only  from  the  above  strong  state- 
ment but  consistently  from  numerous  extracts 
throughout  his  works  to  be  his  own  literal  inter- 
pretation of  the  teachings  of  Christ.  He  asked  for 
no  intermediate  authority  to  interpret  to  him  their 
meaning,  and  entertained  no  doubts  as  to  the  cor- 
rectness of  his  own  rendering.  That  he  was  deeply 
impressed  with  the  spirit  of  the  teachings  of  Christ 
often  shows  itself,  particularly  in  its  practical  rela- 
tion to  the  service  of  man  toward  his  fellow.  Love 
and  helpfulness  for  the  neighbor,  the  poor  and  the 
sick  are  frequently  themes  of  his  appeals. 

Among  the  manuscripts  which  Sudhoff  has  re- 
produced is  a  sermon  containing  an  autobiograph- 
ical fragment,  manifestly  written  in  his  later  years, 
which  is  so  retrospective  and  introspective,  and  so 
completely  in  accord  with  the  known  facts  of  the 
life  of  Paracelsus,  that  it  bears  the  strongest  pos- 
sible internal  evidence  of  genuineness.  The  manu- 
script is  at  Leyden  and  is  a  copy  made  between  1590 
and  1610.  Copies  of  somewhat  later  date  exist  also 
in  Copenhagen,  Salzburg  and  the  British  Museum, 
the  latter  in  a  Latin  version. 

For  the  estimation  of  the  personality  and  mental 
experiences  of  Paracelsus,  it  is  too  important  to  be 
omitted. 

"As  I  have  undertaken  to  write  of  the  blessed 
life  of  Christian  faith,  it  has  not  seemed  proper  to 
attempt  to  portray  that  without  this  introduction. 
....  Therefore  I  have  undertaken  to  write  this  pref- 


PARACELSUS  AS  A  THEOLOGICAL  WRITER.       1 55 

ace  to  the  blessed  life  of  Christian  experience  that 
I  may  excuse  my  delay  in  writing  this  book,  as  I 
began  working, upon  it  in  the  twentieth  year  [1520]. 
Why  I  have  so  long  postponed  and  delayed  has  not 
happened  without  reasons.  One  of  these  is  this  that 
youth  should  not  come  forward  before  its  proper 
time,  as  nothing  should  appear  before  its  time,  but 
should  await  the  determined  hour  toward  which  we 
all  progress.  For  another  reason,  not  only  my 
youth,  but  that  other  matters  of  my  profession 
have  prevented  me,  namely  that  astronomy,  medi- 
cine and  works  in  philosophy  had  to  be  described, 
that  is  to  say,  that  which  concerns  the  Light  of 
Nature,  so  that  I  had  to  leave  for  a  later  harvest 
the  Sacred  Writings;  that  they  might  be  well 
ripened,  they  have  been  postponed  to  the  end  and 
the  lesser  things  completed  first.  These  are  two 
reasons  that  have  strongly  influenced  me.  But  not 
only  from  these  causes  has  the  delay  arisen,  but 
much  more  from  this  that  I  was  raised  and  grew 
up  in  great  poverty  so  that  my  resources  have  not 
permitted  me  to  act  according  to  my  desires. 

"And  even  when  I  had  nearly  finished  there 
arose  in  my  affairs,  public  and  private,  much  oppo- 
sition which  has  lain  on  my  shoulders  alone,  and 
there  has  been  no  one  to  hold  back  and  shield  for 
me.  For  very  strange  kinds  of  people  have  perse- 
cuted and  accused  me  and  hindered  me  and  dis- 
credited me,  so  that  I  have  had  little  reputation 
among  men  but  rather  contempt.  For  my  tongue 
is  not  built  for  chattering  but  for  work  and  for  the 


156  PARACELSUS. 

truth.  That  is  the  reason  that  I  have  not  counted 
for  much  with  the  logicians  and  dialecticians  in 
medicine,  philosophy  and  astronomy.  Also  their 
pomp  and  display  and  fine  speeches  for  princes  and 
the  rich — I  have  been  nothing  like  that,  and  have 
therefore  been  forsaken.  So  also  has  greatly  tor- 
mented me  the  winning  of  my  bread  [der  PHug 
meiner  Nahrung] .  For  the  world  is  not  to  be  gained 
by  astronomy,  as  it  has  little  value  except  for  itself, 
nor  by  medicine  as  it  has  not  power  over  all  dis- 
eases, nor  by  philosophy  [i.  e.,  natural  philosophy] 
likewise,  as  it  is  held  in  contempt,  but  by  trades- 
men's wealth  and  courtly  manners.  That  has  been 
a  cross  to  me  and  still  is  to  this  day. 

"Nor  has  all  this  been  the  least : .  .  .  .  The  other 
[reason]  is  so  great  that  I  can  hardly  describe  it — 
that  is  the  greatest  cause  which  has  hindered  me 
from  writing — that  I  have  not  been  considered  a 
true  Christian ;  that  has  troubled  me  severely.  For 
because  I  am  a  creature  of  God,  redeemed  by  His 
blood  and  through  it  have  received  food  and  drink 
in  the  new  birth,  that  has  seemed  sufficient  to  me  to 
make  me  a  true  Christian. 

"But  there  has  arisen  against  me  another  crowd 
and  faction  who  say,  'Thou  as  a  layman,  as  a  peas- 
ant, as  a  common  man,  shouldst  not  speak  of  such 
things  as  pertain  to  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  but 
shouldst  listen  to  us — to  what  we  tell  you  and  hold 
to  that,  and  shouldst  listen  to  no  others  nor  read 
anything  except  us  alone!'  T  was  thus  forced  into 
a  delay — I  hardly  dared  to  stir  for  they  were  power- 


PARACELSUS  AS  A  THEOLOGICAL  WRITER.       1 57 

fill  in  this  world,  I  had  to  endure  it  as  one  who  must 
lie  under  the  stairs. 

"But,  nevertheless,  when  I  read  the  corner-stone 
of  Christendom  and  heard  the  preaching  and  dis- 
putations of  the  others  (it  was  like  a  miller  and  a 
coal-heaver  against  each  other) ,  it  became  necessary 
for  me  and  manifest  that  I  should  accept  rather  the 
truth  than  lies,  rather  righteousness  than  unright 
eousness,  rather  light  than  darkness,  rather  Christ 
than  Satan.  When  I  perceived  the  difference  I  let 
the  opposition  go  without  contradiction  and  accepted 
for  myself  the  Christian  corner-stone.  As  I  then 
found  that  in  the  layman,  in  the  common  man,  in 
the  peasant  (which  name  they  employ  when  they 
would  abuse  their  opponents  most  scornfully),  the 
perfection  of  the  blessed  Christian  life  most  abides, 
and  not  at  all  in  those  others,  then  I  began  to  write 
of  the  truth  of  the  life  in  Christ.  When  I  had  then 
finished  the  writing  and  concluded  with  much  hope, 
there  broke  out  the  division  of  the  kingdom  of  this 
world  as  it  now  is  [i.  e.,  the  Reformation?].  So  I 
delayed  and  took  pause — postponed  it  till  another 
autumn  and  harvest.  It  has  now  seemed  good  to 
me  to  make  an  end,  and  so  to  close  with  these  books, 
the  fruits  of  the  seed  which  has  been  with  me  from 
the  beginning. 

''Therefore  I  have  included  in  one  work  the  re- 
lation of  Christians  to  the  blessed  life  and  likewise 
the  relation  of  Christians  to  the  unblessed  life.  .  .  . 
Those  in  the  unblessed  life  are  preat,  are  arrogant 
— thev  own  the  world,  it  is  theirs — thev  are  the 


158  PARACELSUS. 

children  of  the  hght  of  the  world.  But  the  blessed — 
they  have  not  the  world — but  they  have  their  king- 
dom which  is  not  of  this  world  but  of  the  Eternal, 
and  with  the  Eternal :  where  two  of  the  blessed  life 
are  together,  there  is  Christ  the  third.  Those  are 
the  riches  that  they  have  in  this  world.  And  al- 
though those  who  have  opposed  me  have  greatly 
hindered  me,  they  have  not  suspected  what  has  lain 
in  my  pen;  I  have  kept  my  mouth  closed,  that  the 
storm  and  the  thunderbolt  should  not  strike  me  to 
earth.  Thereby  I  have  brought  it  forward  till  this 
day  and  have  not  troubled  myself  about  them,  but 
have  held  companionship  with  the  common  people 
of  whom  they  are  ashamed  and  have  myself  there- 
fore been  despised.  This  has  been  my  preparation 
for  this  work."^* 

1^  Sudhoff,  Versuch,  etc.,  II,  pp.  406-408. 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  STRENUOUS 

LABOR. 

WHEN  PARACELSUS  so  summarily  termi- 
nated his  career  as  a  university  teacher  tiy 
his  flight  from  Basel  in  1528,  he  evidently  realized 
that  henceforth  he  could  expect  little  sympathy  or 
support  from  the  profession  or  the  university  facul- 
ties. 'T  am  called  a  rejected  member  of  the  uni- 
versities, a  heretic  of  the  profession,  a  misleader  of 
scholars."^  He  recognized  that  for  the  realization 
of  his  ambitions  for  the  reform  of  medical  theory 
and  practice  he  must  depend  upon  appeals  to  a  wider 
public  than  the  scholastic  physicians  and  to  a 
younger  generation  of  medical  students. 

''Nevertheless,  I  shall  not  in  my  time  be  able 
to  overthrow  this  structure  of  fables,  for  they  are 
old  and  obstinate  dogs  who  will  learn  nothing  new 
and  are  ashamed  to  recognize  their  folly.  That, 
howcA^er,  does  not  matter  very  much,  but  it  does 
matter  that,  as  I  hope,  the  young  men  will  be  of  a 
very  different  character  [werden  in  eine  andere 
Haiit  schlieffen,   i.   e.,   'schliipfen']    when    the    old 

1  op.  foL,  I,  201,  "Paragranum,"  Preface. 


l6o  PARACELSUS. 

ones  have  passed  away,  and  will  forsake  their  super- 
stitions and  thus  the  foundation  [of  medicine]  will 
make  progress."" 

On  leaving  Basel  he  was  in  his  thirty-fifth  year. 
His  subsequent  life,  comprising  some  thirteen  years, 
was  devoted  with  great  energy  and  persistency  to 
writing  and  when  possible  to  publishing  his  many 
treatises  upon  medicine,  surgery,  natural  philosophy, 
theology  and  other  subjects  comprising  his  volumi- 
nous works. 

This  work  was  pursued  in  spite  of  many  ob- 
stacles and  much  opposition.  Driven  by  poverty 
and  the  necessity  for  earning  his  bread,  as  well  as 
by  the  hostility  of  his  opponents,  to  frequent  changes 
of  residence,  impelled  often  doubtless  by  his  own 
native  restlessness  to  seek  new  scenes  of  labor  and 
experience,  he  led  a  lonely  a.nd  wandering  life. 

The  story  of  these  wanderings  has  been  pieced 
out  in  detail  from  autobiographical  notes  in  his 
works,  from  dates  and  places  where  prefaces  or 
dedications  of  his  various  books  or  letters  were  w^rit- 
ten  and  from  occasional  contemporary  local  records. 
Such  data  have  been  sifted  and  compared  with  local 
and  contemporaneous  records  notably  by  R.  J.  Hart- 
mann,  and  thus  a  very  connected  and  probably  cor- 
rect record  of  this  period  of  his  life  has  been  recon- 
structed.^ It  is  not  the  purpose  here  to  follow  this 
story  in  detail.     It  appears,  however,  that  no  year 

-  Chir.  Biicher,  etc.,  Preface  (first  printed  in  1536). 

^  Cf.  Hartmann,  op.  cit.    The  detailed  story  with  some  imaginative 
embellishment  may  be  found  in  Stoddart's  Life  of  Paracelsus. 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  STRENUOUS  LABOR.   i6t 

passed  for  Paracelsus  without  one  or  more  changes 
of  residence,  and  no  place  could  be  called  his  home. 

After  leaving  Basel,  he  was  for  a  time  in  Colmar 
whence  he  wrote  letters — still  extant — to  his  friend 
B.  Amerbach  at  Basel;  later  at  Esslingen  on  the 
Neckar,  which  place  he  left  after  some  experiences 
with  a  patient  and  the  local  physicians  who  provoked 
him.  Shortly  after  we  find  him  at  Nuremberg  en- 
deavoring to  publish  certain  of  his  works.  It  ap- 
pears that  these  had  passed  the  public  censors  and 
permission  had  been  granted  for  printing,  when  be- 
cause of  protests  emanating  from  the  medical  fac- 
ulty of  Leipsic  the  permission  was  revoked.  There 
is  preserved  and  printed  by  Huser  in  his  collection 
of  the  writings  of  Paracelsus,  the  letter  in  which  the 
author  appeals  to  the  city  authorities  against  this 
decision.  In  it  he  challenges  the  justice  of  thus  de- 
nying him  the  privilege  of  publication  on  the  protest 
of  the  university  faculty.  He  stands  for  the  truth, 
he  says,  and  his  opponents  should  be  made  to  prove 
their  claims  in  open  disputation  before  his  publica- 
tions should  be  prohibited.  This  letter  bears  date 
of  March  i,  1530,  and  is  dated  at  Beratzhausen. 
There  is  no  evidence,  however,  that  his  appeal  was 
granted  consideration. 

Interesting  evidence  as  to  his  presence  in  Nurem- 
berg in  1529  and  of  the  impression  he  made  upon  a 
contemporary  writer,  is  found  in  a  passage  in  the 
Chronica,  Zeytbuch  und  Geschichfsbibel  of  Sebas- 
tian Franck: 

"Dr.  Theophrastus  von  Hohenheym,  a  physician 


1 62 


PARACELSUS. 


♦  AaX;R(V«  IA>1/1  SIT  i  q^  SVVS  E55E  POTTST* 


^  AVREQU  ^THEOPHR/VSTI  ^  ^B  ^JHDHEMr^ 


V  § 


PARACELSUS  THREE  YEARS  BEFORE  HIS  DEATH. 

This  portrait  and  the  following  one  are  probably  by  A.  Hirschvogel  (c, 
1503-1569),  engraved  after  sketches  from  life.  The  signature  re- 
produced underneath  reads :  "Theophrastus  von  Hohenheim,  der 
Heiligen  Schrift  und  beider  Arzneien  Doctor." 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  STRENUOUS  LABOR.   1 63 

and  astronomer.  In  the  year  1529  the  Doctor  men- 
tioned came  to  Nuremberg — a  strange  and  Wonder- 
ful man,  who  ridicules  nearly  all  doctors  and  writers 
of  medicine.     He  is  said  to  have  burned  the  Avi- 


LnGES  'fmLOU  ■tHEDPHRAStr  AB  HOHEM 
CM^i  DONVn  PER.FtCTV<A    A     DEO 

jNPuarECTvn  A  diaeojo 


cenna  in  public  in  the  University;  is  quite  alone  in 
opposition  to  all  medical  men  in  his  prescriptions, 
diagnosis,  medical  theory,  and  maintains  many  dif- 


164  PARACELSUS. 

ferences  with  many  of  them  [und  vil  wider sinns 
mit  vilen  helt] .'' 

The  allusion  to  Paracelsus  as  an  "astronomer" 
is  justified  by  his  occasional  publications  of  prognos- 
tications of  political  and  other  events  in  Europe. 
This  class  of  publications  was  very  common  even  at 
a  much  later  period,  and  many  physicians  and  "as- 
tronomers" issued  them. 

That  these  later  years  of  Paracelsus  were  years 
of  active  authorship,  we  know  not  only  from  the 
mass  of  his  evidently  authentic  work,  but  from  his 
occasional  struggles,  more  often  unsuccessful  than 
successful,  to  get  his  works  printed.  In  a  Latin 
letter  of  Paracelsus  to  an  unnamed  correspondent 
he  himself  refers  to  his  continuous  labor  in  writing 
— taking  no  time  for  pleasures.  Internal  evidence 
locates  the  date  of  this  at  1529  or  1530.* 

From  the  leaves  of  a  diary  of  about  1534-35 
written  in  Latin  by  Joh.  Riitiner,  a  citizen  of  St. 
Gallen,  where  Paracelsus  spent  some  time,  we  learn 
that  "Theophrastus — is  most  laborious,  sleeps  little, 
— without  undressing  throws  himself,  booted  and 
spurred,  on  the  bed  for  some  three  hours,  and  cease- 
lessly, ceaselessly,  writes."^ 

The  preface  to  the  third  book  of  the  Paramirum 
was  dated  in  St.  Gall  in  1531.  It  was  here  that 
he  is  said  by  Staricius  to  have  dedicated  various 
theological  writings  to  the  Abbot  of  St.  Gall. 

*  See  Schubert  and  Sudhoff,  Paracelsusforschungen,  II,  p.  53. 
5  Ibid.,  I,  p.  63. 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  STRENUOUS  L^BOR.       165 

In  1534,  he  came  to  Innsbruck  in  the  Austrian 
Tyrol,  in  poverty  and  rags,  and  where  he  apparently 
was  refused  the  privileges  of  the  city.  'The  burgo- 
master of  Innsbruck  has  probably  seen  doctors  in 
silken  clothing  at  the  courts  of  princes,  not  broiling 
in  the  sun  in  tattered  rags,"  remarks  Paracelsus  in 
the  Preface  to  his  treatise,  "The  Pestilence  in  the 
City  of  Stertzingen."^  From  Innsbruck  he  went  to 
Stertzingen,  and  thence  to  Meran  in  the  Tyrol, 
where  he  tells  us  that  he  obtained  honor  and  good 
fortune.  But  apparently  not  for  long,  as  in  1535 
he  is  the  guest  of  the  Abbot  Joh.  Jakob  Russingen 
at  Pfaffers,  where  he  wrote  and  published  a  treatise 
on  the  mineral  springs  at  that  resort,  a  work  often 
reprinted.  In  1536  he  is  at  Ulm  and  in  the  same 
year  at  Augsburg,  in  both  of  which  cities  editions 
of  his  Greater  Surgery  appeared  in  that  year. 
Thence  to  Vienna  where  it  appears  he  again  failed 
to  obtain  consent  to  publish  certain  works  and  was 
made  to  feel  the  unfriendliness  of  the  medical  pro- 
fession. In  1537  he  revisited  his  boyhood's  home 
Villach  where  his  father  had  died  in  1534,  appar- 
ently while  Paracelsus  was  absent  in  Innsbruck  or 
that  vicinity.  In  the  same  year  (1537),  as  is  re- 
corded by  Erastus,  Paracelsus  left  in  Kromau  "a 
chest  of  books,  a  part  of  which  he  had  brought  there 
with  him,  a  part  he  had  dictated  while  there.'' 

In  1538,  he  presented  to  the  authorities  of  the 
Archduchy  of  Carinthia,  with  the  request  that  they 
be  published,  four  manuscripts:  Chronicles  of  the 

«  Op.  fol,  I,  356. 


1 66  PARACELSUS. 

Land  of  Carinthia,  The  Labyrinth  of  Errors  of  the 
Physicians,  Tartaric  Diseases  and  Defense  Against 
the  Slanders  of  His  Enemies.  The  authorities  ac- 
cepted these  courteously  and  promised  they  should 
be  published,  though  the  promise  was  not  fulfilled, 
and  long  afterward  the  manuscripts  and  the  letter 
of  acceptance  were  acquired  by  the  energetic  Huser 
and  published  in  his  collection  of  1589-1590. 

Augsburg,  Munich,  Gratz,  seem  also  to  have 
served  as  resting-places  of  Paracelsus  for  brief 
intervals  during  his  later  years,  before  arriving  at 
his  last  brief  residence  at  Salzburg. 

The  years  from  1531  to  1534  appear  to  have 
been  a  period  of  grinding  poverty  for  Paracel- 
sus. Later  years  were  more  comfortable  or  at  any 
rate  relieved  by  periods  of  more  comfortable  cir- 
cumstances. Though  the  physicians  were  gen- 
erally opposed  to  him,  he  was  called  in  quite  fre- 
quently to  treat  wealthy  or  distinguished  patients 
in  cases  where  the  regular  attendant  physicians  had 
failed  to  afford  relief.  According  as  he  was  more 
or  less  successful  in  his  treatment  his  fortunes  fluc- 
tuated. On  the  whole  it  is  evident  that  his  popular 
reputation  was  considerable  even  in  these  later  years 
of  disappointment  and  discouragements.  It  is  re- 
corded, for  instance,  that  in  1537  a  dinner  was  given 
in  his  honor  by  the  town  of  Pressburg  at  the  house 
of  the  Stadtrichter  Blasius  Beham."^ 

Taken  as  a  whole,  these  later  years  of  Paracelsus 

'^  Cf.  Franz  Strunz,  Theophrastus  Paracelsus,  sein  Lehen  und  seine 
Personlichkeit,  Leipsic,  1903,  p.  Ti. 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  STRENUOUS  LABOR.   167 

may  be  summarized  as  a  continuous  struggle  to 
commit  to  writing,  and  so  far  as  possible  to  print, 
his  new  message  to  philosophy,  to  medical  theory 
and  practice.  The  volume  of  w^ork  which  he  suc- 
ceeded in  committing  to  manuscript  was,  under  the 
circumstances  which  limited  his  accomplishment., 
indeed  remarkable,  even  eliminating  all  works  of 
doubtful  authenticity. 

The  recognition  he  obtained  from  his  works 
during  his  own  life  was  not  great  except  for  the 
very  considerable  popularity  of  his  Greater  Sur- 
gery, though  at  the  time,  surgery  as  an  art  was 
held  rather  in  contempt  than  esteem  by  the  medical 
doctors,  and  was  largely  practised  by  barbers  and 
others  of  less  scholarly  training. 

The  determined  and  largely  successful  efforts 
of  the  conservative  medical  party  to  prevent  the 
publication  of  the  works  of  Paracelsus,  was  in  some 
measure  a  tribute  to  their  potential  influence.  That 
their  fears  as  to  the  extent  of  this  influence  wxre 
entirely  justified  is  shown  by  the  great  popularity 
of  these  books  when  they  finally  began  to  appear  in 
print.  This  period  of  active  publication  of  his  works 
began  about  1560  and  extended  for  about  a  hundred 
years.  The  last  printed  collection  of  his  works  was 
the  Latin  version  of  1658,  published  at  Geneva, 
which  in  spite  of  many  imperfections  met  with  the 
widest  circulation  and  is  the  one  best  known  to  the 
medical  world  generally. 

The  great  popularity  and  consequent  influence 
upon  the  time  of  the  works  of  Paracelsus  is  evi- 


1 68  PARACELSUS. 

denced  by  the  bibliography  of  his  printed  works 
compiled  by  Sudhoff,  in  which  no  less  than  two 
hundred  and  fifty  are  recorded  as  appearing  before 
1600.  These  comprise  editions,  reprints,  transla- 
tions and  collected  works.  By  1658,  the  year  of 
the  above-mentioned  Latin  collection,  the  record  of 
printed  publications  had  reached  about  three  hun- 
dred and  ninety. 

The  circulation  of  the  medical  works  of  Para- 
celsus initiated  the  fierce  contest  between  the  pro- 
gressive party  favoring  the  use  of  the  so-called 
chemical  remedies  and  more  or  less  influenced  by 
Paracelsan  theories,  and  the  conservative  party, 
holding  to  the  traditional  dogmas  of  the  Greek- 
Arabian  authorities,  and  resisting  to  the  utmost  the 
radical  innovations  of  the  followers  of  Paracelsus. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  dwell  upon  this  chapter 
of  the  history  of  medical  science.  Suffice  it  to  say 
that  gradually  the  chemical  remedies  made  way 
against  the  opposition  of  medical  faculties  and  the 
conservative  profession.  The  University  of  Heidel- 
berg was  compelled  by  a  student  revolt  to  eliminate 
the  oath  pledging  candidates  to  oppose  the  use  of 
such  remedies,  and  the  University  of  Paris  was 
forced  to  cancel  similar  legislation  by  opposition 
among  students  and  members  of  the  medical  pro- 
gressive party.  It  was  during  this  long  and  bitter 
struggle  that  many  of  those  reports  and  rumors 
were  initiated  that  so  long  discredited  the  reputation 
of  Paracelsus. 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  STRENUOUS  LABOR.       1 69 


/^  pfuentiaiineHcaici-meionParactlacii:  ity/em 
(j^  guojueficnmn  teejacrmjcrffinhmt. 


'■  OM>JE  PONVM  PERFECTVMAPEO.IMPERFECT^^MVERO  A  DI  •>  EOlO  CSSS^ 


EULVS   PHh-  .Bgy  j  -fHmPHbAfi-i</'!j'  j^kT^'V^'kT'iJVs^ 


Dzr  hochgekrc  vnd tiefiinni^  ?zatun 


.^AB  hot/fvTiil  srtzenej  mm  frnde 
Beim  Theaphrxf?o  ft  geschw'mdt , 
^tsvtr  tpot he/  Jreitait/tnijam 
Se/Mirnem  nenscien  icar^  erfam 
jfU  Pellirentz,Schlag,Sa]kndlu.c^e, 
Jlufs9tz,;vnd  Z/^erha  Verrucht, 
Sturyt  mire  hrmciheii  mancherart 
t&t  etigehcilc  der  hchgelia-e 
iCieDtererin  cler  .Miitre/, 
So  dieser  in  der^Artzcne/ 
VervnJnaci/inetikemer  kani, 
'X>er  Ihm  hierjn  iejijreuleaam. 
Jiuflts  innrnhventTeufel/em, 
Dii/ielbpjfhn,  tichrmii,Kch  aiat 
'Enciecke  ier'Kiir./Ienirthim. aU , 
Jlifihrauch,  alMm^kpiiggatzen  fall 


Epicaphiumehis  qucdSalBlurclsnNoftco- 
■nao  s^udS Sehct/trjimon,RitifrpHtmavm ers' 

coKDrr  VR  fflc  phclifpvs  the 

OPiRASTVS  INSIGNIS  >rei>ICiK« 
BOCTORjQVI  DmA  IIXAWLNETiA 
LEPRAM.POEAfiRAMiffilSDPISIM. 
AXIAQVE  IHS'ANABILIA  CORPOKIS 
COICCACIA  MDRIFrCA  ARTE  SVSTVI.IT, 
JiC  EONA.  SV\  W  PAVPEKES  DISTRIBVEDA. 
COLtOCANDAOyE  HONOBiWTT,  AHNO  MB 

xxzsa  nns  xxSttt  septembkvitam  cvm 

MOKra  JVtVTIAVrT  "-Scs 


■Z.V SaJtzbur^fuMch 0lme  ilagr 


Ob  ^mJHilgei- Schniji Jluiiert, 
TfirJc  aus /emn  bachemgnu^fraiim. 
Dm  misseim  he;  iierhiaJere/Snff?.en 
ZeenTjSrtzCjThedc^eijViiJ  lur^eii . 
TlJas  mr  in  T&mlvsiA'Erden  i/i , 
fiV?  Hefn-Sodhr  z'aHer  fi/T. 
tJech  vttF  er  fibtf  dn" /chiQartzeTtiaf^j 
'Die  mm ihn  hzic'mgt  <as  vnffcnfk . 
jiuch  IhHeftihisch  (lem  hatgna^c, 
Dmrnc  He  -mrnecim  viier  hrachc 
'Vem  deotHoTZU  He  grdbn  mecall 
TiSe  erfem  saubern  kirnien  all 
Ixsilbervniin  rctes  Qek . 
TCtr  vilT  yamfclcheTn  mchcfem  hslt . 
Hit  aUsem^e  ien  armmgeien; 
CfCToeijhnjerz  das  eicighhen 


fkilosophische  vndEib'aschsS^rudieTheojhra^i . 

SjBif  mitn.  Tntcht  ael  timmtfm  Str  flr/Ufi  hlethzn  kmJUem.    Cfst  /?/Ii>i,ffttd  im  meti/chm  KuDew  micilaefhen  m  tuig  rlu 
_JSlgttt:  gahex  sadfven  Cfct,  DesTeufth  aier  fmit  em^et . 
'Xsci^:^Jclilig'emiecUaefgatt2,niitfntdm,dmSuaneatJ&rTUffefii^^     ncief  vtr-e-J                            (ynifth,- 
^uoi  tg-I^h  iceU  ^  ncOLErfo/er  teiCjVJid  er  vrric  vnch  hernacT)  as  der  erden  iti^trkreclkeTt,  vsdverde  henath  mfdttirr  memerhax 
Corinth,  iz-^efrndt  lir.Seiacbei!V!iirjier!t]^deavn(^otjyeb<n,ememiedennarh/eaer*}irchoy,aoeT iwrchttnengei/t . 
r~I£sil.  i/^^ihT'iiimsch  ve^ weiie gebtreu leiec ein harze  7£it,vndt^V!lwiniie,^ehet aufteie  embhm.vndfe/cab.erfat 
Ihne  iefhmiee  feiti.  die  zalfnite'vtmsbnffebet  ie/  He.  in  btifi  em  ael^esetzvyias-umrdt  erTncke  i-irr^ehen,  ■ 
Ssaha-  ty.  ^ir  Vhr  Icra  raei  dAi  es  eat  emde  wit  nor  balen  rm^, vn*  mem  teles  em zxel  habe,  vndjch  daiun  mufs- . 
"^cm;  u^.-Cfi^  ieiaer  Uib imffliei;  fmihmer fhrbt  mfelher.  leben  mrjeleieaaar  dsm I&renflirien uvlof}ethei>mitn. 
TieTrgtt.iarKmk  itirhlet edirPvrln  jo ^iubr tnribt£5ren .       Smit ^etrofc Jcl  lA  dielCeh  vberuundni ._^tam:  tS  . 


nETPOY  2HOPEAAOY; 

EXXoif  [ottlpjmfa.  (5e<i^pi,Qs  IIa^«K£XBV 
"Eiic^fa  rifi  (JwTiMS  (J^ei^wy  <CTpff>rc>.oi', 

"TiSc  fuiSag  fitSKuit^'faBtc,  xcvB/Uuva;  cpOnn, 

Obp  ivapiS/ieK ic  ma^iep  auuiSu  '^ 
'Hf"  ait  i/av  Jv'w^iy,^  iiro  ac>Ai?pi®^. 


GILLH  PINAYTUCSg 

CtinTarace^inm  ctrsjiieis  effyian. 
^rj/ca  cetACe  tusaigiiot^uit  ci&axejiwiervam 
(jft(eci:^ermiimis  cmtinetvrms  (Toms  • 
ASer^^erSoreit^/}nac/!hj!sjrst§f  cm- 

'  IngemoA'^Mis  gia  ti£ijefilai  cpes  . 
jlSiS  ejcnpfisjcrutctr/  ihscera  terrie^  f 

^Kce&^ejmtes^/canderif  tevpuijiou . 
^ii'gue -Tnaritere hdc  tenee Cce^/iia daia, 

'^rjiofstJs  fingts  enumo-oFe  £es  ■ 
HHiiS  et  iG^tSjTc  Twsparere  Tccj^es  ' 

.Altirruf  vejS ^  tiaisefsejates  • 


-rw.. ■■■■|.^IJ-»^.1-11.=J^ 


tj-r-^^l-trr^^^T 


I      -     -.,.      ^.-.. .1  ■III.  I  ^^- — ■ ■        - .  ■  -  - — -■-■Taf-i-i    >-iM     .y-nr* — ^  tr»it'h    mi  m    t  ^ 


BROADSIDE  ON  PARACELSUS. 
Before  1606.    Engraved  by  Balthasar  Jenichen  after  originals  by 

Hirschvogel. 


170 


PARACELSUS. 


That  with  the  really  progressive  influence  which 
his  ideas  exerted,  other  less  progressive  and  even 
reactionary  influences  were  exerted  is  also  true.  For 
many  of  the  more  fantastic  theories  and  superstitious 
notions  common  to  his  time  and  contained  in  his 
writings,  doubtless  received  through  the  weight  of 
his  reputation  with  his  followers  a  new  vitality,  and 
his  own  disregard  for  the  achievements  of  the  an- 
cient Greek  physicians  was  shared  in  too  great  a 
degree  by  his  enthusiastic  followers.  Later  critics 
of  Paracelsus,  however,  too  often  appear  to  credit 
him  with  having  been  the  originator  of  the  mystical 
and  supernatural  ideas  of  his  writings,  rather  than 
considering  them  as  they  were — a  very  full  and  in- 
deed almost  encyclopedic  record  of  the  popular 
supernatural  beliefs  and  of  the  fashionable  neo- 
Platonic  philosophy  of  his  time  and  people.  That  he 
was  superstitious  is  true ;  that  he,  on  the  other  hand, 
often  endeavored  to  bring  supernatural  ideas,  which 
he  with  others  credited,  within  the  domain  of  natural 
cause  and  effect  we  have  already  seen  illustrated. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  true  that  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries — and  we  may  say  also  in  the 
nineteenth  century  —  mystics  and  visionaries  have 
sought  for  and  found  inspiration  in  his  works.  Par- 
acelsus, endeavoring  to  present  a  complete  system 
of  the  philosophy  of  nature,  naturally  includes  and 
attempts  to  systematize  the  then  accepted  facts  of 
nature  which  were  credited  by  the  people  to  which 
he  belonged.  He  relates  these  just  as  if  he  were 
describing  any  other  accepted  facts  of  nature.    The 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  STRENUOUS  LABOR.   I7I 

following  illustration  may  serve  as  an  example, 
though  it  reads  strangely  enough  when  transplanted 
from  the  superstitious  sixteenth  into  the  clearer  in- 
tellectual atmosphere  of  the  twentieth  century.  It 
is  doubtful  whether  there  were  many  of  his  day  who 
would  have  found  it  absurd. 

"For  there  are  real  beings  who  live  in  all  four 
elements  [i.  e.,  Air,  Water,  Earth,  Fire]  and  who 
in  former  times  of  nature  were  often  considered 
and  worshiped  as  gods.     And  it  is  indeed  these 
against  whom  Almighty  God  has  warned  us  in  His 
commandment  on  the  first  tablet  of  Moses :  that  we 
shall  have  no  other  gods  but  Him,  neither  in  the 
water — here  He  means  the  nymphs — nor  under  the 
earth  —  here   He  means   the  sylphs   and  pygmies. 
For  He  is  a  jealous  God  and  visits  such  misdeeds 
of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and 
fourth  generations.    And  it  is  not  less  true  that  the 
Venusberg  in  Italy  [sic]  was  peopled  by  these,  for 
Venus  was  herself  a  nymph,  and  the  Venusberg  has 
been  compared  to  her  kingdom  or  paradise.  But  she 
has  now  perished  and  her  kingdom  has  passed  away 
with  her  and  ceased  to  exist.     For  when  have  we 
heard  anything  more  of  them  since  those  old  days 
when  Tannhauser  and  others  were  there.    And  that 
is  no  fable  about  him  but  a  true  story.     For  those 
folk  are  of  such  a  nature  that  they  iove  all  those 
who  love  them,   and    hate  those  that    hate  them. 
Therefore  to  him  who  binds  or  pledges  himself  to 
them  they  give  knowledge  and  riches  enough.  They 


172  PARACELSUS. 

know  our  minds  and  thoughts  also,   so  that  they 
may  be  easily  influenced  to  come  to  us."^ 

With  respect  to  many  such  records  of  current 
supernatural  beliefs  it  is  perhaps  not  the  peculiarity 
of  Paracelsus  that  he  was  more  credulous  than 
others  of  his  time,  but  that  he  was  peculiar  in  hav- 
ing the  couraR-e  to  record  and  at  times  even  to  at- 
tempt  to  explain  phenomena  which  other  writers  of 
his  day  with  more  purely  mystical  theories  hardly 
dared  to  commit  to  waiting  for  fear  of  being  sus- 
pected and  punished  for  the  possession  of  occult 
connection  with  the  Evil  One.  And  after  all,  is  not 
the  concept  of  ''superstition"  purely  relative  to  the 
knowledge  and  belief  of  a  particular  state  of  knowl- 
edge? For  Paracelsus  also  had  his  own  ideas  of 
superstition — "Can  that  be  a  proper  condition  of 
man  when  he  knows  nothing?  No  man  of  knowl- 
edge has  ever  remained  misled,  nor  has  he  ever  been 
found  superstitious.  Where  are  the  superstitions? 
Among  those  who  understand  nothing.  Where  is 
pride?  Only  among  those  who  lack  foundation. 
Where  is  folly?  Only  with  those  who  persist  in 
their  own  wisdom  and  advance  no  farther  into  God's 
wisdom.  And  so  when  knowledge  is  made  manifest 
and  it  can  find  no  foundation  in  their  empty  skulls, 
they  think  it  must  be  from  the  Devil,  and  sorcery. 
....  For  every  one  should  know  that  all  help  comes 
from  God,  for  neither  to  the  Devil  nor  to  any  sor- 
cerer is  it  possible." 

While  it  has  been  the  fortune  of  many  prominent 

8  Op.  fol,  II,  291,  "De  occulta  philosophia." 


THE  LATER  YEARS  OF  STRENUOUS  LABOR.   1 73 

names  in  the  history  of  civilization  that  their  best 
thoughts  have  been  remembered  and  their  weak- 
nesses and  vagaries  overlooked,  it  was  the  fate  of 
Paracelsus  that  for  centuries  his  shortcomings  were 
emphasized  and  exaggerated  and  his  merits  mini- 
mized. The  period  of  his  activity  was  distinguished 
by  the  development  of  revolutionary  ideas,  when 
the  spirit  of  modernism  was  struggling  to  free  it- 
self from  the  bondage  of  medieval  scholasticism 
And  the  most  revolutionary  idea  w^as  that  of  in- 
dependence in  questioning  and  judging  authorita- 
tive dogmas  sanctioned  by  centuries  of  acceptance. 
In  this  respect  Paracelsus  was  among  the  greatest 
of  his  century.  That  his  method  was  not  that  of 
modern  science  may  be  freely  admitted,  yet  he  may 
be  credited  with  some  realization  of  the  necessity 
of  such  method  and  of  foreseeing  as  he  preached 
that  "Expei'ientia  est  Scientia." 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  PARACELSUS. 

THE  restless  career  of  Paracelsus  came  to  its 
close  in  the  city  of  Salzburg  in  Austria.  In 
this  his  last  residence  town,  his  most  poverty- 
stricken  days  past,  it  seems  that  he  had  found  a 
comparatively  quiet  and  restful  harbor.  Probably 
also  his  health  was  failing.  Though  scarcely  forty- 
nine  years  of  age  he  presented  the  appearance  of  a 
more  advanced  age  if  we  may  judge  from  his  most 
authenticated  portraits — drawings  made  within  two 
or  three  years  before  his  death. 

His  death  took  place  on  the  twenty-fourth  of 
September,  1541.  Current  legends,  originating, 
however,  long  afterward,  attributed  various  causes 
for  his  death.  It  was  alleged  that  he  died  in  a 
drunken  debauch,  and  it  was  also  said  that  he  had 
been  murdered  b}^  assassins  at  the  instigation  of 
professional  enemies.  Modern  researches,  however, 
have  shown  the  groundlessness  of  these  rumors  and 
brought  to  light  positive  evidence  in  contradiction. 
Investigation  of  his  exhumed  remains  gives  evidence 
on  the  basis  of  expert  examination  that  Paracelsus 
had  suffered  from  childhood  from  rickets,  which 
would  doubtless  account  for  the  early  appearance 
of  age. 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  PARACELSUS.  1 75 

Evidently  his  death  was  not  sudden  or  unantici- 
pated. Three  days  before  the  day  of  his  death,  he 
dictated  to  the  pubHc  notary  his  last  will  and  testa- 
ment. This  document  has  been  preserved  to  us,  duly 
attested  by  three  witnesses  and  signed  by  the  notary. 

It  begins  in  the  formal  and  stately  legal  phra- 
seology :^ 

'Tn  the  name  of  God,  Amen.  Let  it  be  made 
known  and  manifest  to  all  and  every  one  who  may 
see,  read  or  hear  read,  this  present  public  instru- 
ment, that  in  this  year  after  the  birth  of  Christ  our 
dear  Lord,  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  forty-one, 
on  the  day  of  St.  Matthew,  the  holy  Apostle,  the 
twenty-first  day  of  September,  at  midday,  in  the  sev- 
enth year  of  the  reign  of  the  most  holy  Father  and 
Lord  in  God,  Paul,  in  God's  providence  the  third 
pope  of  that  name,  in  my  public  notaryship  and  in  the 
presence  of  the  hereinafter  named  witnesses  espe- 
cially summoned  and  besought  therefor:  there  has 
personally  appeared  the  worthy  and  very  learned 
Theophrastus  von  Hochenhaim,  Doctor  of  the  Lib- 
eral Arts  and  of  Medicine,  although  weak  in  body, 
sitting  upon  a  couch,  yet  quite  sound  in  reason,  mind 
and  spirit.  In  order  that  he  may  not  take  leave  of 
this  world  without  testament  and  ordering  of  his 
temporal  goods,  the  same  Dr.  Theophrastus,  with 
plainly  comprehensible  words,  w^th  free  wnll  and 
with  right  knowledge,  under  no  compulsion  from 
any  one,  has  done  and  performed  his  said  necessary 

^  From  the  text  of  the  testament  as  given  b}'  Netzhammer,  oj^.  cit. 
Appendix. 


176 


PARACELSUS. 


business  and  last  wishes  thereto  pertaining  in  all 
measure  and  form  as  hereinafter  contained: 


iiiiifliiiiiiiB^^^ 


BUST  OF  PARACELSUS  AT  EINSIEDELN. 

By  Ildephons  Kuriger.   Early  19th  century,  after  drawings  by  Hirsch- 

vogel  and  Jenichen.   The  socle  shows  Paracelsus's  coat  of  arms. 


"First,  he  commits  his  life,  death  and  his  poor 
soul  to  the  shield  and  protection  of  Almighty  God, 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  PARACELSUS.       1/7 

in  the  confident  hope  that  the  everlasting  mercy  of 
God  will  not  suffer  the  bitter  suffering,  martyrdom 
and  death  of  His  only  begotten  Son  our  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ  to  be  unfruitful  nor  lost  to  him,  mis- 
erable creature. 

''Then,  that  his  burial-place  has  been  selected 
by  the  said  Doctor  at  Saint  Sebastian's  this  side  of 
the  bridge.  There  shall  be  sung  in  the  church,  ac- 
cording to  ancient  usage,  the  first,  seventh  and  thir- 
tieth [Psalms],  and  at  all  three  singings  a  penny 
is  to  be  given  in  hand  to  every  poor  person  before  the 
door." 

Then  are  enumerated  various  bequests  of  small 
sums  of  money  or  articles  of  personal  belongings  to 
designated  persons  or  for  particular  purposes,  as  for 
instance  his  medicines,  plasters  and  professional 
books  to  Master  Andre  Wendl,  citizen  and  barber 
(therefore  also  surgeon)  of  Salzburg.  And  finally — 

"Fifthly,  for  all  other  of  his  goods  and  belong- 
ings he  institutes  and  names  as  his  heirs,  the  poor, 
the  wretched  and  the  needy  people  who  have  no 
stipend  nor  other  provision."  And  he  directs  that 
in  this  distribution  there  shall  be  shown  neither 
favor  nor  disfavor  but  that  only  the  w^ants  and 
necessities  of  such  poor  people  shall  be  considered. 

The  inventory  of  his  modest  possessions  attested 
by  the  notary  and  witnesses  is  very  circumstantial, 
cataloging  various  small  sums  of  money  in  gold  or 
silver  coins,  silver  cups  or  other  vessels,  articles  of 
clothing  and  similar  personal  belongings.  It  is 
interesting  to  notice  the  presence  of  a  copv  of  the 


178  PARACELSUS. 

Bible,  of  the  New  Testament,  a  concordance  of  the 
Bible,  the  Interpretations  of  Hieronymus  on  the 
Evangelists,  one  printed  and  seven  manuscript  vol- 
umes of  medical  treatises  and  "various  similar  col- 
lections," also  a  ''collection  of  several  and  various 
manuscripts  on  theology  assumed  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  Theophrastus." 

That  the  provisions  of  his  will  were  faithfully 
executed  we  have  evidence  in  the  signed  and  re- 
corded receipt  by  Peter  Wessner,  Bishop  of  Ein- 
siedeln  (the  birthplace  of  Paracelsus),  for  certain 
items  of  his  property  bequeathed  to  him  for  admin- 
istration. 

It  is  a  satisfaction  to  know  that  Paracelsus  in  his 
last  days  seems  to  have  been  to  some  extent  relieved 
from  the  distressing  poverty  and  hardships  of  ear- 
lier years,  and  that  though  held  in  slight  esteem 
by  professional  colleagues  he  yet  found  some  who 
held  him  in  estimation.  It  is  also  a  satisfaction  to 
know  that  he  died  accepted  by  the  Church  many  of 
whose  doctrines  and  observances  he  had  so  severely 
but  so  seriously  denounced  as  corruptions,  but  to 
whose  fundamental  faith  he  yet  claimed  allegiance. 

It  is  a  yet  greater  satisfaction  to  know  that  a 
mass  of  confusing  and  discrediting  legends  and  fic- 
tions, which  for  three  centuries  have  cast  unde- 
served reproach  upon  the  reputation  of  Paracelsus 
as  a  man  and  physician  have  been  shown  by  modern 
research  to  be  groundless,  and  that  there  exists 
nothing  that  to  our  present  knowledge  contradicts 
the  inscription  originally  engraved  upon  his  tomb 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  PARACELSUS.  1 79 

in  the  cemetery  of  the  Hospital  of  St.  Sebastian  in 
Salzburg,  which,  translated,  reads: 

"Here  is  buried  Philippus  Theophrastus,  distin- 
guished Doctor  of  Medicine,  who  with  wonderful 
art  cured  dire  wounds,  leprosy,  gout,  dropsy  and 
other  contagious  diseases  of  the  body,  and  who  gave 
to  the  poor  the  goods  which  he  obtained  and  accu- 
mulated. In  the  year  of  our  Lord  1541,  the  24th 
of  September,  he  exchanged  life  for  death." 


BIBLIOGRAPHY/ 

WORKS  RELATING  ESPECIALLY  TO  PARACELSUS. 

Friedrich  Mook,  Theophrastiis  Paracelsus,  eine  kritische  Sfu- 
die.    Wurzburg,  1876. 

Karl  Aberle,  Grabdenkmal,  Schadcl  mid  Abbildungen  des 
Theophrastiis  Paracelsus.     Salzburg,  1887-91. 

Ediiard  Schubert  and  Karl  Sudhoff,  Faracelsusforschungen. 
2  pamphlets,  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  1887-89. 

Franz  Hartmann,  The  Life  of  Ph'il'.ppus  Theophrastus  Bom- 
•  bast  of  Hohenheim,  Knozvn  by  the  Name  of  Para- 
celsus, and  the  Substance  of  His  Teachings,  etc.  New 
York,  n.  d.  (1887). 

Arthur  Edward  Waite  (editor  and  translator),  The  Her- 
metic and  Alchemical  Writings  of  Aureolus  Philip  pus 
Theophrastus  Bombast  of  Hohenheim,  Called  Para- 
celsus the  Great.    2  vols.,  London,  1894. 

Karl  Sudhoff,  Versuch  einer  Kritik  der  Echtheit  der  Para- 
celsischen  Schriften. 

Part  I :  Bibliographia  Paracelsica.     Berlin,  1894. 
Part  II:  Paracelsnshandschriften.     Berlin,  1899. 

P.  Raymund  Netzhammer,  Theophrastus  Paracelsus:  Das 
Wissensiverteste    iiber    dessen    Leben,    Lehre    und 

1  This   Bibliography   includes   only  the  principal   authorities   con- 
sulted. 


1 82  PARACELSUS. 

Schriften  iind  die  neuesten  Paracelsischen  Forschun- 
gen.     Einsiedeln,  1901. 

Franz  Strunz,  Theophrastus  Paracelsus:  Das  Buck  Para- 
granum.    Leipsic,  1903. 

Franz  Strunz,  Theophrastus  Paracelsus:  Sein  Leben  und 
seine  Personlichkeit,  etc.     Leipsic,  1903. 

Franz  Strunz,  Theophrastus  Paracelsus:  Volumen  Para- 
mirum  und  Opus  Paramirum.    Jena,  1904. 

John  Ferguson,  Bibliotheca  Chemica.  2  vols.,  Glasgow, 
1906. 

John  Ferguson,  Article  'Taracelsus"  in  the  Encyclopcedia 
Britannica,  9th  (and  later)  ed.  (1885). 

Hugo  Magnus,  Paracelsus,  der  Ueherarzt  ("Abhandlungen 
zur  Geschichte  der  Medizin,"  Vol.  XVI).  Breslau, 
1906. 

Anna  M.  Stoddart,  The  Life  of  Paracelsus  Theophrastus 
von  Hohejtheim.     London,  1911. 

Agnes  Bartscherer,  Paracelsus,  Paracelsisten  und  Goethes 
Faust:  eine  Quellenstudie.    Dortmund,  1911. 

Arthur  Miiller,  Paracelsus  und  der  Trdumer.  Dramatisches 
Traumspiel  in  filnf  Akten.    Vienna,  n.  d.  (ca.  1912). 

HISTORIES  OF  MEDICINE. 

C.  A.  Wunderlich,  Geschichte  der  Medisin.    Stuttgart,  1859. 

Joseph  Bauer,  Geschichte  der  Aderldsse.    Munich,  1870. 

Heinrich  Haser,  Lehrbuch  der  Geschichte  der  Medizin  und 
der  epidemischen  Krankheiten.  3d  ed.,  3  vols.,  Jena, 
1875-82. 

J.  H.  Baas,  Die  geschichtliche  Entzvickelung  des  drztlichen 
Standes  und  der  medizinischen  Wissenschaften.  Ber- 
lin, 1896. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY.  1 83 

Troels-Lund,  Gesundheit  und  Krankheit  in  der  Anschauung 
alter  Zeiten.    Leipsic,  1901. 

Neuburger  and  Pagel,  Handhuch  der  Geschichte  der  Medisin. 
3  vols.,  Jena  1902-05. 

HISTORIES  OF  CHEMISTRY. 

N.  Lenglet  Duf  resnoy,  Histoire  de  la  philosophie  hermetique. 
3  vols.,  Paris,  1762. 

Joh.  F.  Gmelin,  Geschichte  der  Chemie.  3  vols,  Gottingen. 
1797-99. 

Thos.  Thomson,  The  History  of  Chemistry.  2  vols.,  Lon- 
don, 1830-31. 

Karl  C.  Schmieder,  Geschichte  der  Alchemic.     Halle,  1832, 

Ferd.  Hoefer,  Histoire  de  la  chimie.  2  vols.,  Paris,  1842-43 

H.  Kopp,  Geschichte  der  Chemie.  4  vols.,  Brunswick,  1843- 
1847. 

H.  Kopp,  Die  Entwickelung  der  Chemie  in  der  neueren 
Zeit.     Munich,  1873. 

H.  Kopp,  Beitrdge  ziir  Geschichte  der  Chemie.  3d  section, 
Brunswick,  1875. 

H.  Kopp,  Die  Alchemic  in  alter er  und  neuerer  Zeit.  Heidel- 
berg, 1886. 

Ernst  von  Meyer,  History  of  Chemistry  (translated  by 
George  McGowan).  3d  English  from  3d  German 
edition,  London  and  New  York,  1906. 

MISCELLANEOUS  WORKS. 

Christoph  Sigwart,  Kleine  Schriften.  1st  and  2d  series,  2d 
ed.,  Freiburg  i.  B.,  1889.  * 

J.  E.  Erdmann,  A  History  of  Philosophy  (English  edition 
by  W.  S.  Hough).  '3  vols.,  London,  1892-93. 


184  PARACELSUS. 

Arthur  Moeller  van  den  Briick,  Die  Deutschen,  Vol.  III. 
Minden  i.  W.,  n.  d.  (1904). 

Wilhelm  Windelband,  Die  Geschichte  der  neueren  Philo- 
sophie  in  ihrem  Zusammenhange  mit  der  allgemeinen 
Kultur  und  den  besonderen  Wissenschaften.  4th  ed., 
2  vols.,  Leipsic,  1907. 

Alfred  Lehmann,  xihcrglauhe  und  Zauberei.  2d  ed.,  Stutt- 
gart, 1908. 

Ernst  Cassirer,  Das  Erkenntnisproblem  in  der  Philosophie 
und  Wissenschaft  der  neueren  Zeit.  2d  ed.,  2  vols., 
Berlin,  1911. 

Frank  P.  Graves,  Peter  Rafnits  and  the  Educational  Refor- 
mation of  the  Sixteenth  Century.     New  York,  1912. 


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